Last Foody Friday of the year, and isn’t it great that Christmas falls on a Friday. The Victorians were mad for Christmas: they brought in the tree, put the wreath outside, combined Father Christmas and Saint Nicholas to create Satna Claus, and gave us the source material for The Muppets Christmas Carol (I’m sorry, but that is the definitive adaptation!).

We’ve abandoned a lot of traditions over the years, like the Yorkshire Pie. That was a huge beast, with whole partridges, pheasants, geese, rabbit, hares, hams, turkeys, legs of lamb, and anything else that happened to have walked past the kitchen doorway while the chef had their cleaver in hand. It was, essentially, a larder made of pastry. When you took something out you replaced it with butter.

Mrs Beeton’s Excellent Mince Pies

Ingredients

3 large lemons
3 large apples
1 lb raisins
1 lb currants
1 lb suet
2 lbs brown sugar
2 oz candied orange peel
1 oz lemon-peel
1 small cup of brandy
2 tbspn orange marmalade
1 pack puff pastry (alternatively, split your pack between this and the Georgian pies 0 or make shortcrust, which was coming into use at this time)

Equipment

Rolling pin
Large mixing bowl
Muffin tin
Large airtight jar

Instructions

Grate the lemon rinds and juice the lemons. Strain the pips out.

Peel the apples, core them, and dice. Cook over a low heat until nice and puply.

Mix the lemon, apples, peels, dried fruit, sugar, brandy, suet, marmalade and everything else together.

This is the really hard part: put it in the airtight jar and leave for a fortnight. Remember, this is excellent mincemeat we’re making.

Two weeks later (somewhere around the 12th day of Christmas, if you’ve actually started making these on Christmas day) roll out your puff pastry and make your mince pies. If you want to do shortcrust, remember it’s twice as much flour as butter, crumbled into breadcrumbs,  and add cold water until its a ball of dough. Stick in the fridge until it’s nice and cold, then role out.

Happy Holidays!