[snugs]

Here are my mince pies, yes I put a slit on top but because they are small no leaf design on them. Mum put leaf design on either the large mince pie or more often on her meat pies especially the steak and kidney or chicken ones and of course apple pie.

On the fruit pies and mincemeat she would also sprinkle fine granulated what we call caster sugar on top. She always had a vanilla pod in her caster sugar to flavour the sugar for using in cakes etc rather than adding vanilla to mix, she said this gave a more natural and less overpowering taste of vanilla. I found some vanilla pods in ASDA the other day and have started to do that again and yes I agree with mum - mothers know best LOL.

I also make a large mincemeat tart with no top crust but put slices on apple in a fan shape round it and serve whilst still warm with fresh double (heavy) cream or British custard.

My mince pies - 3 dozen I made on Thursday

A mincemeat and apple tart I made a few months ago, I tend to make this other times of the year and have the small bit size ones for Christmas. Goes back to the time when people might drop in for a cup of tea and I mince pie when my parents had a catering business I suppose. Also when I was young and school friends might come back in the evening at Christmas time and mum always made sure there were mince pies and sausage roll available - more about sausage rolls later tonight though. I use normal pastry for my mince pies/tarts not sweet short crust, half the weight of fat to flour and water to mix. The fat is half block (hard) marg and half vegetable shortening in Britain Trex or Cooken and I believe in the States your most popular make is crisco. Cooken in Britain now has no trans fats which because of the comments over that I had stopped using it but have now gone back to it and am pleased with the improvement of my pastry again.

My apple and mincemeat tart

[A knight without armor]

I like the idea of little individual pies. Interesting that you mention Crisco because I have not bought it for twenty years but just last night I saw it in a recipe for making some spritz cookies and one of the recipes calls for the butter flavor Crisco. I have never tried the butter flavor Crisco. I wonder if it will be a light yellow color? I don’t think I’ll get and stick to the real butter recipes. But when I was a pup Crisco was extremely popular and a staple. It was said that Crisco was practically a miracle treatment for burn victims but the manufactures could never talk about it as a salve. The other spritz cookies do not call for Crisco. No matter what I make I’m still getting my annual tin of Dansk.