Mince pies are part of the traditional British Christmas, and one of my favourite parts at that. Best eaten hot, with some kind of alchol-laced-dairy. Brandy butter for preference, but brandy cream, rum cream, rum butter… They’re all good.

It’s hard to say when the mince pie began. Meat pies were often made with minced meat (leftovers from a roast, usually), and we liked to bung fruit and spice in there too. Which spice, and how much, depended on how wealthy you were. Pastry was used as pie dishes are now; it existed to keep the insides from spilling out all over the oven, but you didn’t usually eat it. Considering our prospensity for putting live animals inside it (sing a song of sixpence, anyone?) I’m not sure you’d want to.

Mince pies were served during Henry VIIIs coronation. Somewhere between then and Cromwell they picked up their Christmassy connotations. We know this because Oliver Cromwell made it illegal to eat them then. Puritanism didn’t really take in this country.

The closest recipe we have to this period is one from 1584, from A Book of Cookrye Very necessary for all such delight therein. It reads:

For Pyse of Mutton or Beefe: Shred your meat and suet together fine, season it with cloves, mace, Pepper, and some Saffron, great Raisins, Coranc and prunes, and so put it into you Pyes.

Or, for you and I:

Ingredients

250 g Flour
90 g Lard
65 ml Hot water
300 g Minced beef
50 g Suet
Pinch of Saffron
1/4 tsp Mace
1/4 tsp Cloves
25 g Raisins
25 g Prunes
25 g Currents

Equipment

Bowl
Pie dish (well, it’s not necessary, but it does make life easier!)
Kettle
Rolling pin & board
Blunt knife
Sauce pan
Sieve

Instructions

Sieve the flour and heat the lard in the saucepan. When the lard is liquid, take it off the heat and slowly add the boiling water.

Add to the flour, stirring continuously until you have a ball of dough. Leave to cool.

Roll out and line your pie dish, leaving enough over to make a lid. If you want to get Tudor, build excitingly shaped “coffyns”, like stars and moons. Make sure they’re thick.

Mix your beef, suet, spices and fruit together.

Put your mincemeat in your pie dish. Roll out your pastry again and make a lid for your pie (or coffyns). Seal it down with a little milk and the prongs of a fork. Make sure you cut holes in the top to let the steam out, and brush it with a sugar glaze (water and sugar allowed to simmer until the sugar is completely dissolved). If you don’t want to eat your lard pastry, don’t bother.

Put in the oven on a medium heat. I’ve found about thirty minutes is a good length of time. It’s beef, so it’s not the end of the world if it’s a little red, but ideally it should be cooked through without being allowed to get dry. It should smell amazing.

Cut the top from the pie, and tuck into the hot and juicy innards.