The best sweet pastry in the world.

[pigletwillie]

Well I think so and I use it especially for mince pies and the like.

8oz butter
2oz icing sugar
6oz plain flour
2oz cornflour
vanilla essence
icing sugar to decorate

Cream the butter until soft and then beat in the icing sugar.

Sift the plain and corn flours together and add these to the mix along with a splash of essence until it comes together. If its a bit sticky ad a little more flour.

Flour a board and roll out but not too thinly and work quickly.

Cook at gas mark 4 or 180c or 350f for approx 15 minutes.

Leave to completely cool in the tins otherwise THEY WILL FALL APART.

Decorate with icing sugar.


If any of you guys try it, please let me know what you think.

[pigletwillie]

Doubling up this recipe makes about 18 deep mince pies or 24 standard ones.

I have just turned mine out whilst just warm and snaffled one as part of my quality control. Yummy indeed.

[nick the grief]

a friend of ours make the mince pies for us & she puts orange zest in the pastry ...... they seem to disappear quickly though

[Alison]

I put orange zest in my mince pie pastry and use half and half water and orange juice also. If I've got any in I'll also put a small amount of cream cheese over the mince meat and although it sounds a bit iffy I can promise it's really nice and moist.

[pigletwillie]

The posted pastry recipe doesnt require any water but the addition of orange zest would be a good idea for other applications.

In mince pies I like the pastry as a foil to the taste of the mincemeat and not competition to it and fear it would be too much.