Shortcrust Pastry...and Mince Pies!

Shortcrust pastry is ridiculously easy and quick to make, here is the recipe ready for your mince pies!

There is a very useful little rule to remember, so you can make this without fiddling with recipe books and things: you need half the amount of fat to flour (half of which is butter and half lard), and one teaspoon of water for every ounce/25g flour.....it's easier than that makes it sound, promise!

8oz/200g plain flour

2oz/50g cold butter

2oz/50g cold lard

pinch salt

8tsp cold water

(this quantity makes about 20 mince pies (topped with a star) and uses up approximately one jar of mincemeat) (ish)

Pre heat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6

Hand method:

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl, add the butter and lard and cut into small pieces.

Rub the fat into the flour between your fingers and thumb (hard to demonstrate while trying to photograph!)

  Use both hands and it is best if your hands aren't too hot.  You want a sort of breadcrumb texture, but don't overwork it or it'll make the pastry tough.

Blender method:

Easier, quicker and fail-safe!

Put the sifted flour and salt in a blender, add the butter and lard roughly chopped.

Blend until you have a breadcrumb-y texture.

Both methods:

Add the water and bring the dough together using a butter knife.

Finally give a few squeezes to bring it into one lump.  The less you touch it/knead it, the better.

Dust the work surface and rolling pin with flour.

 Always roll away from you.

Turn the pastry through 90 degrees, add a little more flour if necessary and roll again.  Keep moving and rolling until it's about 3mm thick.

Turning the pastry rather then rolling at different angles makes rolling easier and stops you getting carried away only to find it has stuck firmly to the table.

Give the mincemeat a stir and add a splash more brandy if you want particularly boozey mincers.  Cut rounds to line the patty tin, spoon in the mincemeat and top with a star or a smaller circle, depending on how you like your mince pies.

You can brush the tops with a little beaten egg and milk, but I can never be bothered, you end up wasting most of an egg unless you are making millions.

Bake for 12-15 mins until just turning golden, then remove and cool on a rack.  Dust with icing sugar before serving hot or cold.

And lo, there were the crispest, crumbliest, mouthwateringest mince pies in all the land.

Teeny tiny mince pies are fab for parties as they can be shoved in ones mouth whole, preventing crumb-y, dribble-y, party-dress-ruining disasters.

For time saving/ready-for-any-occasion mincers, make them as above but don't bake them, instead bung the tin in the freezer overnight, then remove them from the tin and store in a freezer bag.  When you fancy some or have sudden unexpected guests, whip them out, drop them back into the patty tin and bake from frozen for 20-25 minutes until golden and piping hot all the way through.

Scouting Out Our New Locality

So these are our new surroundings!

Completely and deliciously beautiful and only about 15 minutes up the road.

Last weekend Edward and I went for a rather damp tentative exploration of Dartmoor.  The weather only made it all the more exciting (I really worked very hard on holding back the pun there) and it was all very wild and rugged.  We tramped about for a bit, climbed a tor, got marooned in a marsh and then went home for tea all rosy-cheeked.

Then Wednesday I went to Wembury with one of my lovely new friends and her gorgeous small boy.  It was the absolute opposite of our moor weather, completely clear blue sky, a sharp bite to the air and a bright playful breeze.

We walked along the coast for a bit, scrambling over rocks and slithering though ponds of seaweed until we found a little stretch of sand all to ourselves, perfect for a bit of sandcastle building, and soaking up the wintery sunshine.

Then on Friday when Edward got back from work I took him to Wembury to show him how beautiful it was...and it was.

Nothing like a good sunset for a bit of romantic thingummy.  The general temperature had dropped several degrees since Wednesday though and it was rather fridge-freezing.

Then today we trundled up the road to Dartmoor again.

We picked a car park at random and clambered over a couple of tors, sploshed across a few marshes, leapt a couple of streams and paused to admire spectacular views.

It was even colder than Friday and my ears definitely nearly froze off.  Must get into winter mode now I suppose and actually wear hats and things.  This is real ice, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon...not warm.

The colours are stunning!  My terrible camera skills and smallness of the photo don't do them justice, you absolutely must go out on a walk somewhere wild and enjoy them in real life.

Gosh it is completely heaven living so near such beautiful countryside!

Home Made Mincemeat

You absolutely must.

It is altogether the nicest mincemeat and makes the best mince pies you will ever eat.  It also has the bonus of having no additives or anything funny in it.

Best to make it now and let it cogitate for a few weeks.  I love making my mincemeat, you get an early little waft of Christmassy spicey deliciousness which always sets me off singing Christmas carols and more importantly reminds me that I should probably get on with my Christmas cards and things...yikes....

(Makes about 10 jars)

1lb/450g - raisins
                 - sultanas
                 - currants
             - sugar
                                                        - cooking apples, peeled and cored
12oz/300g shredded beef suet
1 orange
a hefty slug of apple juice        
3oz/75g chopped walnuts
2 blobs of stem ginger in syrup or 4 large pieces of crystallised ginger
2tsp - ground cinnamon
    - ground nutmeg
           - ground mixed spice

a substantial slosh brandy/ginger wine/both

Pick over the fruit and remove any stalks.



Add the apple juice, the zest and juice of the orange and grate in the ginger.



Grate in the apples and stir in with the suet, walnuts, sugar and spices.



Stir well.



Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a cool place overnight.



Sterilise your jars and leave to cool.  Add the brandy/ginger wine to the mincemeat and stir well, then pack it into the jars.  Really press it down in between each spoonful so that there are no air gaps in the jar.  Everything tends to get a bit sticky during the packing process, so wipe the rims of the jars before putting the lids on.



Store in a cool dark place until December 1st-ish.

Instructions for the best and most delicious homemade mince pies here!

One Finished Project

I can cross one of my many half finished projects off my list - I've finally finished my chair!

How to Make Your Own Patchwork Quilt

I love my patchwork.  I like having something to keep me busy that is easy to do in small chunks, mindless enough to be able to do whilst watching telly or holding a conversation

, and extremely satisfying to look at once finished (I imagine...).  It sort of grows without you noticing.  Perfect winter project, just the thing to do whilst snuggling on the sofa.  Mine has now been in progress for nearly two years (don't panic, it is a king sized bed size, I have a million other projects on and I only do my quilt in the winter, it really isn't that slow to do!) and is well on the way to completion, so I thought I would spread the love, and hopefully inspire you to start your own.

Design

First you need to come up with a design.  There are endless possibilities, but for a beginner I would suggest you start with large-ish shapes, and a simple pattern with easily tessellating shapes such as squares, rectangles, hexagons and right-angled triangles.  I particularly like patterns using colour as well as shape, so this may be another factor to think about.  Squared paper is great for helping with proportions while you plan.  Bear in mind you need to decide how big to make your patchwork; you might want to start with a small project like a cushion cover or tea cosy, or go the whole hog and make a king size quilt.  Type patchwork quilt into google and get some inspiration!  Nine-patch, log-cabin and tumbling blocks are a few designs to look at, as well as just tessellating squares, hexagons or diamonds (technically parallelograms I suppose).

Colour

Once you have chosen a pattern, you may want to think about colour.  The way you put the colours together in a quilt can completely alter how it looks.

Fabric

I made my quilt predominantly using recycled fabrics from old clothes and offcuts from sewing projects and Edward's old shirts, interspersed with a few pieces I picked up on holiday in America (which has a fantastic quilting heritage).  I love looking at the quilt and seeing a piece of a favourite dress I wore to death, a well loved skirt I grew out of, or a remnant from something I've made which I am still enjoying wearing.  What fabric you use is entirely up to you.  Old fabrics from clothes have a lovely soft quality which is hard to find in new fabrics, and have the added pleasure (if the clothes are yours) of holding all sorts of memories of well loved items and the fun you had wearing them.  Alternatively visit the charity shops and look for cotton shirts, dresses and blouses, which will give you a little more freedom as you can choose colours, yet still have the lovely soft quality of washed fabrics.  Otherwise find a good fabric shop or look on ebay for cotton print fabric, or 'patchwork packs' - pre-cut sets of cotton prints in co-ordinating colours.

Assembling the Quilt

Start collecting junk mail.  You need a paper base for your patchwork pieces, and junk mail and old magazine covers provide an endless free supply!  Using the measurements from your plan, cut the component pieces, making sure the measurements are as close to perfect as possible.  You may find it is easiest to make a template and then just draw round it a squillion times.

Cut the fabric for each piece, making it about 1cm bigger all the way round.

Holding the fabric against the paper shape, fold over one edge (1cm ish) and stitch roughly in place using long stitches.  Use the cheapest thread you can find as it all goes in the bin afterwards!

You don't need to finish the stitching too securely, so just two or three small stitches in one place will suffice.  Do this for enough pieces to get you started.  You might find it helpful to lay the pieces out and number them on the back if you are making a particular pattern.

Now the easy bit.  Place two pieces right sides together and put the needle through about 1cm in from the edge.  Use a good quality thread for this bit - the better the thread, the longer it will last!  I used quilting thread which is thicker and stronger than normal thread, you can find this is most haberdashery shops.  Also it's best to use short lengths of thread as doing all the tiny stitches can wear the thread and make it prone to breaking.  Ok.  Go.

Stitch two long overhand stitches towards the corner, then turn back on yourself and stitch the length of the edges, keeping the stitches small and even.

At the end, do two longer stitches going back the other way,

then finish the thread by doing a small stitch to make a loop, threading the needle through twice and pulling tight (this essentially ties a knot in the thread).

Like this:

Onto the next piece!  Continue for all your pieces.

As soon as a piece has other pieces sewn on every edge, you can remove the paper pieces which makes it easier to handle and slightly less unwieldy, and you can then re-use the pieces if necessary.

That's about it really, once you've finished putting all the pieces together for the front, sandwich a blanket or a piece of fleece or wadding between the front and a plain piece of fabric for the back and stitch round the sides.  Stitch through all three layers to hold it all together.  This part is called quilting, you can stitch along the lines of the shapes or use the stitching to add detail to plain squares.

Good luck!