Home › Recipes › The Best Mince Pies in the World
The Best Mince Pies in the World
It is not so difficult to make good mince-meat as to make the pies healthful and enjoyable after it is made. Mince pies, too frequently, in hotels where the desire is to make them rich, are made so that they are little better than dabs of sweetened grease. The finest puff-paste is not suitable for them, but a medium quality should be made. The edges will not rise on mince pies much in any case, and rich puff-paste is lost upon them. They have the poorest appearance of any pies if baked plain, but can be made most inviting by being glazed, But don't paint them with yellow smears of egg-yolk. Mix the yolk of an egg thoroughly with twice as much water; brush the tops of the pies over with it before baking; sift a very thin coating of granulated sugar all over, and then bake in a moderate oven till the bottoms are baked dry and light brown, and the tops are covered with a crisp, glazed crust. Mince pies should have both bottom and top crusts rolled quite thin; otherwise the superfluous pastry edges are invariably thrown away.
Mince-Meat a la Royale.
Strictly first-class in all its appointments. 2 pounds of lean roast or boiled beef. 2 pounds of suet. 2 pounds of apples. 2 pounds of currants. 2 pounds of seedless raisins. 2 pounds of brown sugar. 1 pound of candied citron, 2 ounces of ground spices--mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. 1 or 2 cans of Bartlett pears, with the juice. 2 pounds of preserved ginger. 12 oranges--juice and grated rind. 6 lemons-juice and grated rind. 1 pint of rum. 1 pint of brandy. 1 quart of port wine. Chop all the ingredients small. Don't grind them in a machine. Then mix everything together--the dry articles first, and liquids poured over them. Put the mince-meat in jars, cover close, and let stand a week or two before using. When preserved ginger cannot be had, boil half a pound of common race ginger in syrup made with 2 lbs. of sugar in 2 quarts of water. When boiled down to one quart, put the syrup in the mince, and further extract the ginger flavor by pouring the port wine upon it and making warm. This ginger is not to be used in the mince-meat, only its extracted flavor.
When the oranges furnished are ripe and thinskinned it is better to chop half of them after squeezing, and add them to the mince, instead of only grating. Grate the rest and use the juice of all after excluding the seeds.
The pastry and glazing advice here is sound and still worth following; the mincemeat itself is a nineteenth-century keeping preserve that does not meet modern food-safety practice. The notes below explain the archaic terms and why the storage instruction is the problem.
- Why the storage failsRoughly twenty pounds of mixture, of which two pounds are cooked beef and two are raw suet, plus fruit and canned pears in juice, is put into jars, "covered close," and left to stand a week or two with no processing, no measured salt or cure, no acidity target and no temperature given. A low-acid meat mixture held at room temperature is a setting in which Clostridium botulinum can grow, and the sugar, citrus and spirits in this quantity of wet fruit cannot be relied on to bring the water activity or pH down far enough. Use a current tested recipe if you want mincemeat with meat in it.
- The alcohol is not a preservative hereA pint of rum, a pint of brandy and a quart of port sound like a lot until they are divided through twenty-odd pounds of solids and fruit juice. The final alcohol concentration is nowhere near the level that inhibits bacterial growth, and it drops further as the fruit gives up water.
- A moderate ovenConventionally taken as somewhere around 350F, though the book gives no figure. The test in the text is better than any timer: bake until the bottom crust is dry and light brown, which on a mince pie means the underside must be set before the top browns. A preheated stone or a heavy sheet in the lower third of the oven does the work of an old brick-floored range.
- The egg washOne yolk beaten with twice its volume of water, brushed thin, then a very light sift of granulated sugar. The dilution is the whole point: undiluted yolk streaks and goes orange-brown in patches, which is the "yellow smear" he objects to. The sugar is what gives the crisp glazed shell.
- Race gingerWhole dried ginger rhizome, sold unground; ordinary fresh ginger root is the nearest thing on a modern shelf. Note that in this method the ginger itself is discarded and only the flavoured syrup and wine go into the mix.
- Candied citronThe candied peel of Citrus medica, a standard fruitcake ingredient in this period and now a specialty item, usually online or from Italian grocers around Christmas. Candied lemon peel is the usual substitute, though it is milder and less resinous.
- Seedless raisins and cans of pears"Seedless" in this period distinguished them from muscatels that had to be stoned by hand; ordinary dark raisins are what he means. A modern can of Bartlett pears runs about 15 to 16 oz, but period can sizes varied and were often larger, so "1 or 2 cans" is genuinely vague and could swing the fruit and syrup by a pound or more.
- Do not grind itThe instruction to chop rather than machine-grind is most likely about texture rather than sentiment. A grinder or food processor turns suet and cooked beef into paste, which is close to the "dabs of sweetened grease" he opens by complaining about.
- Thin crusts, both of themRoll top and bottom thin, and use a medium paste rather than the finest puff paste, as he directs. Mince filling is heavy and the edges will not rise much in any case, so the lamination is wasted, and a thick rim gets cut off and left on the plate.
Mince pies descend from the medieval European habit of cooking meat with dried fruit, spices and sweetening in one pastry case, a style that survived in England long after sugar and spice had migrated out of most savoury cooking; by the eighteenth century the pie is generally said to have become associated with Christmas, and by the nineteenth the beef was shrinking while the fruit and spirits expanded, which is roughly the point this recipe catches it at. The book's angle is professional rather than domestic: it is aimed at hotel and restaurant pastry cooks, and the opening paragraph is a complaint about a specific trade failing, kitchens that read "rich" as "more suet" and turned out greasy pies with thick discarded edges. Titles like "a la Royale" and "strictly first-class in all its appointments" belong to the same world of printed hotel menus, where a French tag on the card justified the price. The two-week rest before use was understood as ripening, the spices and spirits marrying with the fruit.