Vegan Mince Pies

prep: 30 mins / cook: 1 hour 10 mins / inactive: 30-60 mins / total: 2 hours 10 mins / quantity: 12 vegan mince pies

Ingredients

Instructions

1. For the mincemeat, simply put everything in a heavy based saucepan and bubble over a low-medium heat for around 45 minutes until thick and very sticky. Give a good stir occasionally.
2. Leave to cool while you make and rest the pastry - unless you're making in advance then cool completely before storing in an airtight container in the fridge
3. For the pastry, put the flour and spread into a medium bowl and combine the two by rubbing them together between your fingertips. Do this just until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs then stir in the coconut sugar
4. Add 2 tblsp cold water and mix together until it starts to form a dough - add another tblsp water (or more) if the mixture is too dry. You want to knead it as little as possible, just enough to bring it all together
5. Wrap the dough in foil or cling film and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. The pastry can also be made in advance and stored in the fridge or freezer. Just thoroughly defrost before using
6. Just before you're ready to use the pastry preheat your oven to 170 Fan / 190 C / 375 F / Gas 5
7. Unwrap the pastry onto a floured surface and roll out to around 2mm thick, turning the pastry 90 degrees every couple of rolls - this helps stop the pastry sticking and helps with even rolling out
8. Cut out 12 circles using a 3 inch (7cm) cutter then cut out another 12 using a 2 1/2 inch (6cm) cutter, re-rolling the pasty as necessary
9. Lay the large circles into the mince pie holes, gently pushing down so the pastry sits in the tin like a cup
10. Fill each cup with a teaspoon of mincemeat then top with a pastry lid. You can sprinkle the tops with just a dash of caster sugar here for a sparkly topping but it's not necessary
11. Put in the oven and bake for 25 minutes until the pastry is golden
12. Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before carefully lifting out onto a cooling rack to cool completely - unless you're serving warm which I highly recommend ;)
13. Once cooled, store in an airtight container. Don't store in the fridge, this will make the pastry quite hard

Notes

• The coconut sugar can be subbed for normal sugar but as coconut sugar is quite dark and caramely, a light brown sugar would be lovely!
• You can swap the spices and increase/decrease depending on taste – I’ve been using ginger in everything recently so didn’t include it, feel free to add it if you love ginger!

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