Chilli Chocolate Mince Pies

 Hello

안녕하세요 

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは 

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

I came across this recipe last Christmas, but never got round to posting it before the big day was upon us, so I decided to bake some more this year, ready to share with you, to possibly leave out for the main man as he delivers presents.

Let's get baking!

Ingredients:

200 g dark chocolate (split into 100 g)

75 g unsalted butter

175 g brown sugar

2 eggs

50 g plain flour

15 g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

1/4 tsp sea salt

400 g mincemeat

2 green apples, peeled, cored & grated

2 clementines, zest

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

500 g pack shortcrust pastry, plus extra for decoration

Start off by pre-heating your oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

For the chilli chocolate brownie topping, melt 100 g of the dark chocolate and the butter together, in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly, then beat in the brown sugar, followed by the eggs, one at a time.

Next sieve the flour and cocoa powder, then combine.

Sprinkle in the chilli flakes and the sea salt, and mix together.

In a separate bowl, add the mincemeat, apple and clementine zest and mix together. Then sprinkle in the cinnamon and the ginger and give another mix.

Roll out your pastry to around 2mm thickness and cut out at least 18 discs with a 10cm circle cutter. Also cut out the decorations using a star cutter, or any small Christmas cutters you may have.

Arrange the pastry discs inside a muffin tray, I greased mine with butter.

Spoon 1 heaped teaspoon of the mincemeat mixture into each of the pastry cases, and press down.

Add a square of chocolate, in the centre and push slightly into the mincemeat.

Then spoon 1 heaped teaspoon of the brownie mixture onto the top.

Place your pastry decoration on top, and then place the tray in fridge for 10 minutes.

Cook in the pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden.

Allow to cool slightly and then tuck right in and enjoy.

They may look a little (a lot) messy but, I always seem to make the pastry cases too small for everything to fit in nicely without spilling out everywhere. I've never really been a fan of mince pies, but these ones a really nice and definitely made me want to give normal mince pies a try.

This recipe while it looks like there's a lot of ingredients and a lot to do, it's really easy and simple to follow.

If you would like to follow the original recipe from Schwartz and get perfectly and pretty looking mince pies then head over to Chilli Chocolate Mince Pies.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye