James Lowe, chef and co-founder of Lyle’s and Flor, says: “We always have mince pies on at Lyle’s in December. We sell them at the Lyle’s coffee bar and from Flor in Borough Market in the mornings. In the evening we make mini puff pastry mince pies as the last course to the dinner menu as well. This year we’re also selling mince pie kits made with the meat and fat from a retired Jersey dairy cow, both online and from the restaurants.

“We have always included beef in our mince pies as a nod to the original mince pies served before high quantities of fruit and sugar took over. The flavour and richness from the aged meat and fat is incredibly important and makes ours stand out from the crowd! We’d recommend you get in touch with Nathan at The Butchery by Spa Terminus for finding the best minced beef and beef fat.

“Use a good old school apple, pick a tart variety like russet or cox, which you can get from the Chegworth Valley farm shop in Borough Market.”

Makes 20 mince pies

Ingredients

For the mincemeat:

300g chopped apples
350g sultanas
350g currants
250 soft dark brown sugar
400g minced beef (best if from aged meat)
300g suet
2 oranges (zest and juice)
2 lemons (zest and juice)
125ml brandy
125ml rum
50ml port
Ground nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice – to taste

For the mince pie rough pastry:

400g flour
300g very cold diced butter
100g ice cold water
5g fine salt
pinch of demerara sugar for sprinkling

You’ll also need

A muffin tin or individual mince pie tins

Method

To make the pastry, roughly break the butter in small ½ cm chunks and rub in loosely with the flour and salt. You don’t want to work the butter too much, so make sure you can still see the pieces (this is what will make the pastry puff).

Add the ice cold water and mix until the dough has come together.

Rest the dough in the fridge for an hour.

While the dough is resting, roast or fry the beef mince until browned and smelling of roast beef.

Combine all mincemeat ingredients in a couple of deep roasting trays. Add the beef mince.

Place in a 180°C oven for 30 mins and then turn down the heat to 120°C and cook for two hours, stirring every 20 minutes.

Once the dough has been in the fridge for an hour, roll it out into a long rectangle roughly 15cm x 40cm. Sprinkle the dough with demerara sugar and lightly roll your rolling pin over to press the sugar in.

Fold the dough into thirds like a letter.

Chill and rest the dough for 30 minutes to one hour.

Roll out the dough to form a rectangle again, sprinkle with sugar and repeat the letter fold.

Rest the dough again for 30 minutes to one hour and repeat the rolling, sugar and fold one more time.

To assemble the mince pies, roll the pastry to a thickness of 3mm and cut out large circles to line the bases of a muffin tin or individual mince pie tins. Make sure you leave a 10mm rim around the top of the pie base.

Fill to the rim with the mincemeat and press down, leaving the lip of the pastry exposed.

Cut a smaller circle, egg wash the underside and seal the top of the pie by pressing the overlapping pastry together.

Crimp the overlapping pieces of pastry in any pattern (we do a six-point star).

Egg wash the top of the pie and sprinkle with more demerara sugar and a little Maldon salt.

Cut a small hole in the top of the pie and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes until the pastry lid is golden brown.

Lyle’s mince pie kits are available to buy at lylesprovisions.com

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