Merry Mince Pies

Merry Mince Pies

These delicious mince pies are super festive, healthier than the usual variety and suitable for everyone at your Christmas parties as they are vegan and gluten free.The Pie:60g vegan butter, plus extra for greasing4tbsp coconut palm sugar1/2tsp vanilla extract85g rice flour, plus extra for dusting50g chickpea flour (gram)60g cornflour1/4tsp xanthan guma pinck of Himalayan pink salt3tsp water

The Mince:

60g unsweetened dried blueberries100g unsweetened dried cranberries70g sultanasfinely grated zest of 1 orangejuice of 1/2 an orangefinely grated zest of 1 lemon1tsp ground cinnamon

The method:

1. In a bowl, mix the butter, sugar and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, mix the flours, xanthan gum and salt. Pour the flour mix into the butter mix, add the water and use your fingers to mix it together to form a dough. Knead, and then roll into a ball. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Next, put all the ingredients for the mince part in a food processor until you have a rough and mixed consistency.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 170°C and grease a 12 hole muffin tin with the butter.
4. Dust a work surface with some rice flour and roll out the pastry until 3mm (1/8 in) thick. Using a pastry cutter, stamp out 12 rounds. Keep the remaining pastry aside. Use the rounds to line the base and sides of each muffin hole.
5. Fill each pie with 1tbsp of the filling, not too much otherwise it will spill over the sides during cooking.
6. With the remaining pastry, roll out to a thickness of 3mm (1/8 inch) and using a shaped Christmassy cutter cut out 12 shapes that will form your pie lids. Place over the filling, pushing the edges of the lids down to beet the bottom pastry rim. Bake in a pre-heated oven for 10-15 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven, leave to cool and transfer to a wire rack. Then, dust with agave powder or icing sugar to finish.