Christmastime I´d wanted to make the usual (to me, being American) traditional pies, pumpkin, apple, mincemeat...but couldn´t find any jarred mincemeat at Lerøy Mat on baking day! I´d found actual ¨live¨ not canned pumpkin, and organic pie pumpkins at the corner bodega down from LM, and Norwegian apples, but no mincemeat. Baking day was not time to make my own, as usually it needs to be jarred for months before using. I´d gone on-line to find something, and got some advice...tried a few recipes mixed together, and came up with a gorgeous, scrumptious totally homemade mincemeat pie! The top crust idea is from Martha Stewart´s raisin pie, which I always thought was so pretty with it´s unusual cut outs. Normally, in England the mince pies are tiny with stars or basic top crusts and individual, from what I saw when I lived there. But, I made one large pie, as that is what I thought was easiest, less time consuming, and was used to seeing the large frozen pies in the US.
As I needed the mincemeat immediately, and had no time to let it age, I used apples, dark and golden raisins which I found at LM, currants, butter not suet, spices, sugar, no alcohol though I think brandy or something dark would have been good if I had had time to age the filling, and a few other ingredients. The pie crust was my usual: Martha Stewart pate brisee, but made with the juice of one orange, instead of water. It was very delicious, even more so that usual. The juice gives it a very luscious quality! Pie was fantastic, and I´ll do the same next year.
Getting ready soon holidays coming up again! Will make this mincemeat pie again, pumpkin from organic sugar pumpkins at the local bodega in sentrum, and probably not the apple pie, unless I can get some apples from local trees this week to store.
ReplyDeleteNote to make pepperkakker dough now, to freeze, for cutting out cookies, and pieces for the gingerbread house. Saves time, the most time consuming part is done. Find recipe and post, this month.