Mincemeat Ravioli: The Gin Lover's Mince Pie.

Have you made mince pies yet? Do you keep meaning to but don’t quite get round to it? Do you love the idea of having a constantly restocked pile to greet you when you arrive home but can’t quite be bothered because you keep going out for cocktails and gin always wins? Do you not intend to ever because, HELLO, you can buy them from M&S and the oven is where you store your shoes?

Well if the latter is true, then I don’t think you’re in the market to have your mind changed, and apparently M&S mince pies are in fact very lovely, so go ahead and keep being fabulous and ‘flour in your hair’-free. But if you’re in the other camps, and you just need to carve out that extra half an hour or don’t have the right shaped tin...then YeY, here comes Delia to our rescue.

These are genius; puffy, caramelised, mincemeat filled mouthfuls that you can literal have done, from start to finish, in 30 minutes. I remember making them several years in a row when I was pretty young, probably before I’d ever made a real mince pie, when all I had in my cookbook collection was Delia’s How to Cook Part 1, in which these delights feature. As with all the best recipes, its page is very messy.

Buy in the pastry and mincemeat...honestly, absolutely no one will care, and you can tick ‘make mince pies’ off you list without even breaking a sweat and still having time for gin. With Love and Cake.

(WHY yes, that IS a Christmas tree on my plate.)

Mincemeat Ravioli.

From Delia's How to Cook Part 1

A few notes:

• Make sure to check that your mincemeat is vegetarian, if you care about such things.
• If you have a bit more time, maybe you'd like to make your own pastry. Find the recipe HERE.
• These are so easypeasy that it would be no bother at all to double the recipe or make tweaks here and there. How about a crunchy dusting of demerara sugar before baking, or the addition of a few crumbles chestnuts to the filling?

Makes 15-20

You will need

a large baking sheet, greased

1x320g packet ready rolled puff pastry

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 medium jar mincemeat

icing sugar for dusting

• First things first, preheat the oven to 200°c.
• Spread out your pastry on a clean and lightly floured surface and roll it out so it is just a bit thinner than in arrives out of the packet.
• Then you want to cut it almost in half, but not quite. Basically you want 2 rectangles, with one just slightly bigger than the other; aim for one being about 30x25cm and the other being 32x 28 cm.
• Now brush the smaller rectangle all over with egg.
• Spoon teaspoonfuls of mincemeat evenly along one edge of the smaller rectangle, leaving a border of about 1 cm between each spoonful and between the edge of the pastry. 
• Continue row after row of mincemeat, evenly across the pastry.
• Lay the larger rectangle of pastry, gently over the top of the mincemeat.
• Press down the pastry to seal each parcel of mincemeat and brush the top with more egg.
• Cut along each gap to separate the parcels from each other; you can use a fluted pastry wheel for this if you want a frilly edge.
• Transfer each parcel to your prepared baking sheet and if you're worried that the edges might not be sealed enough, press down around the outsides with a fork.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastry is puffed up and golden. Don't worry about any mincemeat leakages, just make sure you remove the parcels to a wire rack before the sugar in the mincemeat cools and sticks to the baking tray.
• You could either just sprinkle with lots of icing sugar and serve as they are, or when they have cooled and you're ready to serve, you could transfer them back to a backing tray, sprinkle liberally with icing sugar and stick under a hot grill for a few moments. The sugar with caramelise and turn golden. Sprinkle with more icing sugar and serve.
• Merrrrrry Christmas.