Giant Mince Pie

If you are searching for a festive pudding, this giant mince pie makes a lovely, easy, Christmassy treat. You can use ready-made sweet short crust pastry if you want to or follow my recipe for a delicious buttery home-made version. We used a food processor fitted with a chopping blade to make pastry quickly, but you can make by hand if you prefer by rubbing the butter into the flour first with your fingers.

Finish by dusting with icing sugar ‘snow’ or a spritz of silver edible glitter if you want to!

Ingredients

125g salted butter, chilled and cubed

250g plain flour

2 tbs icing sugar

1 free-range egg (separated into yolk and white)

2 tbs water

large (822g) jar mincemeat

Equipment

20cm (8 9inches) round fluted tart tin

Cling film

rolling pin

Tala Performance Stainless Steel Set of 4 Forks

Tala Performance Curved Pairing Knife 

Tala Performance set of 4 Knives 

Kitchen foil

Tala Ceramic Baking Beans 

Large sharp knife

1. Place the butter, flour and icing sugar into the food processor and blitz until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
2. Add the egg yolk and water and blitz again. Turn out the mixture and push into a ball – the mixture should hold together. Wrap in cling film and chill for about thirty minutes.
3. Switch on the oven to 170 degrees Celsius (338 degrees Fahrenheit).
4. Roll out the pastry on a work surface dusted with flour. Make a large, flat circle, about 2 mm thick.
5. Use the rolling pin to lift the pastry carefully over the tart tin and line the tin with the pastry, gently pushing the pastry into each ‘flute’ of the tin wall.
6. Trim the pastry all the way around with a small knife.
7. Prick the pastry lining the bottom of the tin all over with a fork. Then cover the base and walls with foil and pour the baking beans inside.
8. Gather the scraps of pastry into a ball and save for later.
9. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven, carefully remove the baking beans and bake for a further 5 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and trim the top edge of the pastry so that the edges are neat and level with the tart tin.
11. Empty the jar of mincemeat into the pastry case and spread out with a table knife until level.
12. Sprinkle more flour onto the work surface and roll out the remaining pastry thinly and cut into long strips with a large sharp knife.
13. Arrange the strips of pastry on top of the tart so that they look like a giant snowflake (you can follow my photograph for inspiration, or get creative with your own snowflake pattern). My snowflake design used three long and wider strips for the main 'spokes’ with thinner strips cut into smaller sections for the more delicate patterns.
14. Use your finger to ‘paint’ egg white over the strips and to glue the strips together and to the pastry case.
15. Bake for a further 30 minutes until golden brown and smelling of Christmas!