# Vegan Mince Pies



## morning glory (May 28, 2015)

Traditional in the UK at Christmas, these little pies are made with sweet mincemeat. Mincemeat isn't a 'set' recipe. Its basically dried fruits steeped in alcohol (or fruit juice) with suet and often grated apple added. Its simple enough to make it vegan by using vegetable suet which is easily available in the UK. Indeed most jars of ready-made mincemeat seem to be vegan these days.










*Ingredients *(makes approx. 9)

225g plain flour
90g Trex, other vegetable shortening or vegan margarine
1/2 tsp salt
50g golden raisins
50g dried cranberries
50g sultanas
25 ml whisky
zest of 1/2 lemon and 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
70g vegetarian suet
60g dark brown sugar
20g chopped mixed peel
Grated nutmeg to taste
*Method*

Soak the raisins, cranberries and sultanas in the whisky and lemon juice for 1 hr (or overnight) until plumped up.
Whilst the fruit is soaking, make the shortcrust pastry. Place the flour in a bowl and mix in the salt. Cut the vegetable shortening or margarine into pieces and rub into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add just enough cold water to bring the mix together into a ball of dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to chill.
Drain the soaked fruit and add the lemon zest and juice, suet, sugar, mixed peel and nutmeg. Mix well.
Heat oven to 180C
Roll out the pastry fairly thinly* and cut out nine rounds. Line the holes in a muffin tin with the pastry rounds.
Fill each round with mincemeat (be careful not to overfill as the mincemeat mix can overflow as it cooks).
Top with shapes of pastry or smaller rounds.
Bake the pies for 20 mins until golden brown. Leave to cool before removing them from the muffin trays and dusting with icing sugar.
*I do this between 2 sheets of cling film.


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## Jain Daugh (Nov 28, 2017)

A while back I had a bumper crop of tomatoes so gave a go at making green tomato mincemeat! Turned out nicely, though I used butter in mine so it wasn't vegan.

Like how you make these individual sized and sweetly decorated too.


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## morning glory (May 28, 2015)

Jain Daugh said:


> A while back I had a bumper crop of tomatoes so gave a go at making green tomato mincemeat! Turned out nicely, though I used butter in mine so it wasn't vegan.
> 
> Like how you make these individual sized and sweetly decorated too.


Green tomato mincemeat sounds very interesting. Or indeed any kind of tomato mincemeat. You are giving me ideas!


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## Jain Daugh (Nov 28, 2017)

morning glory said:


> Green tomato mincemeat sounds very interesting. Or indeed any kind of tomato mincemeat. You are giving me ideas!


One big tip when using green tomatoes for mincemeat - drain all juice released from grinding/chopping up of the green tomatoes and then RINSE the chopped up tomatoes in cold water to remove all left over tomato taste (bitterness). Then mix with dried fruits of choice/chopped up apples etc. I found that mincemeat's tangier taste was nicely compliments with the more bland taste of pears. Mixed together they made a lovely crisp desert.


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## morning glory (May 28, 2015)

Jain Daugh said:


> One big tip when using green tomatoes for mincemeat - drain all juice released from grinding/chopping up of the green tomatoes and then RINSE the chopped up tomatoes in cold water to remove all left over tomato taste (bitterness). Then mix with dried fruits of choice/chopped up apples etc. I found that mincemeat's tangier taste was nicely compliments with the more bland taste of pears. Mixed together they made a lovely crisp desert.


Yes, I can see that otherwise they would be too wet. I am going to try this idea - I can't get green tomatoes right now but I think it would be interesting to use some red or orange ripe tomatoes (drained as you say). I'll report back..


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## Jain Daugh (Nov 28, 2017)

morning glory said:


> Yes, I can see that otherwise they would be too wet. I am going to try this idea - I can't get green tomatoes right now but I think it would be interesting to use some red or orange ripe tomatoes (drained as you say). I'll report back..


One of the reasons the green tomatoes do well is that they are harder than ripe tomatoes. Unless the tomatoes you find now are those that were picked green and then ethylene gassed to turn 'red'. The you might get happy results.

I have a little cookbook called The Green Tomato cookbook. There is a recipe for mincemeat chocolate cake that I haven't tried and the likes of green tomato hamburger curry! Someone really had a LOT of time - and hopefully fun too - trying out different mixtures.


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