VIDEO: Top 8 mince pies
Large companies tend to want longer shelf life and use fats that will not deteriorate as quickly as butter, or use preservatives to keep the pastry and filling from drying out. Sadly, this is done at the expense of taste and texture. But keep in mind that local small producers’ pies may not keep longer than four days.
Making our own is a satisfying exercise, and pastry made in a blender is easy and quick. Chilling before rolling it out is the secret. The best pastry tips are in Karen Austin’s The Lettercollum Cookbook (Onstream €21). I add a little knob of cream cheese and grated orange peel to my mince meat filling before putting the pastry top on.
To accompany mince pies, the new orange and cranberry drink from Naturally Cordial in Enniscorthy will go nicely and, if you can stretch to it, Lidl has a sweet Sauternes Grand Cru Classé Chateau Romer de Hayot 2001 (€17.99) which will suit Christmas pudding too. Once opened, it will keep at least a week in the fridge.
The average number of calories is 250 per pie, so try to share. Happy Christmas!
This bakery and café in Ballinspittle is up and running again after a fire in the café and the mincepies prove they are back in top form. Superb flaky pastry encases plump fruit topped with a pastry star making this every taster’s favourite. Best to order any decent number ahead www.divaboutiquebakery.com. Delicious!
9.5
Appetising, crumble-topped pies have lots of plump fruit in a flavoursome pastry and topped with just the right amount of crumble. Very good.
9
Well filled and encased in fairly tasty pastry, the plump dried fruit is laced with apple purée and there is a good hint of soft orange flavour. Good to keep calorie count to half of larger ones.
7
Embossed with pastry snowflakes and topped with sugar, these pies look attractive. The brandy-laced mincemeat has a festive flavour, but tasters found the pastry clingy on the palate.
6
A snowflake motif and dusting of sugar makes these attractive. While the balance between pastry and fruit is too much in favour of pastry, the hint of Cognac is noticeable. The pastry has little flavour.
6.25
Baked in-house nationwide and displayed fresh at 12pm, 2pm and 4pm, these sizeable flaky pastry cases have about about half as much filling as they need.
The inner layers of pastry seem heavy until heated so they are not good cold.
They need to be eaten soon after you buy them or heated at 180C in a regular oven (not microwaved) for 5-10 minutes. Tasters like the price.
6.5
Well-filled pies are encased in quite a dull pastry, though not too much of it.
Sharing is a good idea with this size, so you can have another one on another day.
6.75
12 mini pies have three varieties with festive edible gold leaf topping the hazelnut and fig which worked least well as the hazelnuts lost some of their crunch. Our favourite was the frangipane topped with almonds. Comminuted (oranges) was a new word to me and means finely milled. These appear in all varieties which adds to the rich flavour and moist fruit. As they are small, 117 calories is half of many others,
7.25
