Having been disappeared for almost a month now from this lovely little corner of my life, I now feel all the more difficult to make a come back and share something with you all lovely readers. That’s quite strange, as I have never felt this kind of reluctance sharing anything happening around in this space. And ironically, that is when this is the most interesting and joyous work I get to do all because of this blog, which is truly an integral part of my life now. People do relate to me with my blog, my creative outlet and I love being identified this way the most. I can’t stay away for a very long time, you see.
I had been traveling to London for a short work assignment early this month, and so was bound to stay away from my kitchen, my oven and my food props. And by the time I got back, the month was about to over. December being the holiday time, I had lots to catchup. There are plenty of recipes which I had thought to try out before this year goes by. With a bad time management and a hurry to bake something for Christmas at least, I soaked up my dry fruit.
How could I let the Christmas to just pass by like that, without soaking the dry fruit. Although it was just four days away, I still thought to not let it go like that. This time, I didn’t want to bake a fruit cake, rather I had mince pies playing on my mind. In fact they were all over my mind, ever since I first tasted them from a local merchant at Portobello Road market in London. Since then, I went crazy about them and I was gorging on them almost every other day during my stay in the city.
I had have lots of memories about food and markets in London, which I tried to capture them in my camera {I know, I have yet to post about it soon, promise 🙂 }. So, the fruit cake this time got overruled by the cute little mince pies. They look all the more festive.
I adapted this recipe minimally from Nigella Lawson and added lots of orange marmalade which uplifted the flavors of dried fruits and also compensated for the short soaking time. I took them to a friend’s place for the Christmas night dinner and they soon got disappeared from the table. Everyone liked them to their last bits. I am definitely making them now every year for Christmas.
- 240 grams plain flour
- 60 grams cold vegetable shortening
- 60 grams cold butter
- juice of 1 orange, chilled
- approx. 350 grams mincemeat
- icing sugar (for dusting)
- 350 grams dried cranberries
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 100 grams currants
- 100 grams raisins
- 100 grams prunes, chopped
- finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 4 tbsp orange marmalade
- Heat the orange juice, zest and orange marmalade in a saucepan over low heat, until marmalade is completely dissolved into the juice.
- Add the remaining ingredients for mince meat into the saucepan and continue to cook on low heat for 10 minutes, or until most of the liquid is absorbed by the fruit. Let cool completely. Store in an airtight container and let rest in the fridge for a minimum of 3 days.
- Then once you are ready to make your mince pies, get out a tray of miniature tart tins, each indent 2 inches in diameter, along with a 2¼ inch round biscuit cutter and a 1¾ inch star cutter.
- Chop the cold butter and shortening into the flour and blitz in the bowl of your food processor to make a coarse breadcrumb like mixture.
- Pour the orange juice down the funnel, pulsing until it looks as if the dough is about to cohere; you want to stop just before it does (even if some orange juice is left). If all your juice is used up and you need more liquid, add some iced water.
- Turn the mixture out of the processor or mixing bowl onto a pastry board or work surface and, using your hands, combine to a dough. Then form into 3 discs.
- Wrap each disc in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 220°C.
- Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the discs, one at a time, as thinly as you can, but one sturdy enough to support the dense mincemeat.
- Out of each rolled-out disc cut out circles a little wider than the indentations in the tart tins; Press these circles gently into the moulds and dollop in a scant teaspoon of mincemeat.
- Then cut out your stars with your little star cutter – re-rolling the pastry as necessary – and place the tops lightly on the mincemeat.
- Put in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes: keep an eye on them as they really don’t take long.
- Remove from the oven, taking out the little pies straight away from the pan onto a cooling rack and letting the empty tin cool down before you start putting in the pastry for the next batch. Carry on until they’re all done.
- Dust with icing sugar before serving.
Dark chocolate puds, brownies, cakes and all other chocolate desserts are my favourite and they taste even better if topped with a generous scoop of very nice vanilla ice cream. And you can go down the heavenly lanes of taste even further if you drizzle some warm chocolate fudge sauce on top of it. It might sound highly sinful but believe me, we all love such sinful desserts once in a while. 
And there are times when you crave for such goodness so badly. I have not had even a good dark chocolate bar in recent times, forget about pudding or a cake. Summer had been putting me off from the chocolate and I had been gorging more on fruits than anything else for the dessert. But trust me, you can not stay away from dark chocolate for long if you love having desserts so much. 
I had been flipping through the pages of Oz magazine Delicious, which my friend brought me last year, and you know what, it had a large section on chocolate. I felt almost trapped and I couldn’t resist. And I had to make this Self saucing chocolate pudding from Australian Masterchef Matt Preston. 
I have a special place for the classic vintage recipes in my heart. Be it an Indian Kheer (rice pudding) or a Dark chocolate pudding, they have an impact like no other recipe can ever have. And this pudding is amazingly easy and takes no time to bake. It rather surprises you when the sauce oozes out of the bottom of the pan when you dig in your first spoon into it. It is almost magical and divinely tasteful. 
I divided the pudding to be baked into three smaller pie dishes, but if you like you can make it in one single large ovenproof dish. You can enjoy it warm with some pouring cream or vanilla ice cream or even cold straight out of fridge. 
