Mr Hermit crowls out of his den attracted by the smell of my mincemeat pie

the little hand reaching for a piece of the pie vouchsafes quality

Thank you for entering my humble abode, Mr Hermit, thank you A&A! You introduced the festive Christmas atmosphere here.

Here's the recipe from my new cookery book entitled 500 Cakes and Bakes ( very stimulating, but I can foresee some serious weight gain after putting this stuff into practice).

225g flour
10ml ground cinnamon
50gground walnuts
115g butter
50g sugar
1 egg
vanilla extract
1 tbsp cold water

For the mincemeat
2 apples, peeled and grated
225graisins
115g figs or prunes
225g green grapes, halved and seeded
50g almonds, chopped
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
2tbsp lemon juice
30ml brandy
1/4tsp mixed spice
115g brown sugar
25g butter , melted

Mix the mincemeat ingredients together and refrigerate overnight.

Process the flour, cinnamon, nuts, butter and sugar in a food processor top make fine crumbs. Beat the egg with the vanilla extract and water and stir into the dry ingredients. Form a soft dough, kneed until smooth, wrap and chill for 30 min.

Use 2/3 of the pastry to line the tin (about 23cm). Trim and fill with mincemeat.

Roll out the remaining pastry and cut into strips. Arrange the strips in a lattice over the top of the pastry.

Preheat the oven at 190 degrees C. Brush the pastry with water, dust with sugar. Bake the pie for about 40 min. Leave to cool and remove from the tin.





My mum says they were caught in a blizzard in the outskirts of the city today. Seems like winter is lurking from just around the corner!