Mince pies.

I have been making my own mince pies from scratch for a few years. It's simple, adaptable, and ridiculously better value than the goop you can buy in jars. The only drawback is it's easy to end up with several kilos of the stuff. Mincemeat on toast anyone?

Mincemeat

At its most basic, mincemeat is dried fruit (traditionally a mixture of vine fruits and citrus peel), spices, brown sugar and suet. The liquid comes from cooking the dried fruit with apples and citrus juice, and alcohol if you want (I always do.) Chopped almonds are traditional, and in the past I have used combinations of dried cranberries, apricots, figs and cherries. Some recipes add butter, but it's not necessary.

This year, I stayed traditional and mixed 1kg of raisins, 500g of sultanas and 500g currants; a tub and a half of candied citrus peel (around 450g); 100g dried cranberries; lots of blitzed almonds; the grated flesh of eight Bramley apples; the zest and juice of five oranges and three lemons; most of a bottle of triple sec, and two packets of vegetarian suet. The amounts were decided by the size of the packets I bought, and what I needed to use up in the cupboard. Ratios and the like are really not important.

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I also used liberal amounts of ground cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and coriander. You could use none of them, all of them, or different spices. Ginger works well, and I have a good feeling about apple and cardamom. I added a handful each of salt and muscovado sugar and cooked the mixture on the hob. Starting with a minimal amount of sugar helps ensure the mincemeat's taste comes from the intensity of the dried fruit, rather than the relatively bland sweetness of plain sugar. As the apples cooked, the suet melted and the sugar dissolved, I adjusted the flavour with sugar, salt and lemon juice until it tasted exactly how I wanted.

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When it was cooked, I packed the mincemeat into my two largest Kilner jars and left it to mellow for a couple of weeks.

Pastry

I use a Paul Hollywood sweet shortcrust recipe from his book Pies and Puds, but I tend to adapt it so wantonly my inability to find an online link is fairly irrelevant. With so much mincemeat I always make at least double quantities.

The following recipe works reliably, albeit I always have to add either more flour or more water to get the right consistency:

400g plain flour

4 tbs icing sugar

200g butter or Stork baking block

2 eggs

2 tbs water

2 tbs orange and mandarin infused olive oil (I'm obsessed with this stuff)

1 tbs ground cinnamon

A squeeze of lemon juice.

Whizz the flour and sugar together, then add the fat in diced cubes and process or rub in until it looks like breadcrumbs. Whisk the liquid ingredients together and add to the flour; combine as quickly as possible. Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for a couple of hours.

It will last for a few days in the fridge, so it can be used to make smaller quantities of pies to order over several days. It also freezes and defrosts well.

Toppings

I prefer less pastry, more filling; so I quite often make lattice topped mince pies. A frangipane topping also works well but requires butter. Inspired by the treacle tart I made back in October, I also tried a lemony syrup topping, which worked really well as a contrast to the mincemeat.

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This year I bought a mini tartlet tin and have been experimenting to find exactly the amount of pastry needed to get a delicate but resilient case - it's 7 grams, you're welcome. So in addition to regular pies I have also been making a variety of tiny ones, and one giant mincepie crossed with a treacle tart. Regardless of size, I bake them at 200 degrees, and use my eyes and nose to judge when they are cooked. A generous dusting of icing sugar masks most misjudgments.

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I'm sure I'll have managed to use up all that mincemeat by February.