Mince Pies for Lucas

My five-year-old grandson enjoys a Christmas treat
of crumbly little pies filled with sweet mincemeat.

Mince pies that are simple and always taste best
don’t have soggy bottoms and have extra fruit and zest.

My husband’s not a fan and I can leave or take them
but, like grandmothers before me, I would like to bake them.

You will need a muffin mould with six deep holes,
round and fluted pastry cutters, a large mixing bowl.

Eight ounces is the magic weight for most of the ingredients:
peel, core and chop Bramley apples, add raisins and currants,

sultanas and vegetarian suet; four ounces of chopped candied peel,
six ounces of demerara sugar, and mixed spice as you feel.

Zest and juice an orange, add it to the mix, cover with a light
tea towel and let its Christmas magic work overnight.

Now to make the pastry, with thirteen ounces of plain flour,
nine ounces of softened butter and four of caster sugar,

as well as one medium free-range egg, rub it all together
with a splash of ice cold water until it feels much smoother.

Wrap the pastry up with cling film and chill it in the fridge,
and then preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark six.

Roll out the chilled pastry to an eighth of an inch in thickness
and, with the round pastry cutter, cut out six discs and press

them into muffin cups and fill each one with mincemeat,
just three-quarters to keep your mince pies neat.

With the fluted pastry cutter, cut out the pastry lids (slightly bigger
than the cups), press firmly on each pie and dust with caster sugar.

Bake for twenty minutes, set them on a write rack to cool
before serving them with cream and wishes for a happy Yule.

Kim M. Russell, 14th December 2023

Image by Rob Wicks on Unsplash

It’s Thursday and the final dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar prompt of 2023. Our host is Grace and she asks what food we typically prepare and eat during the festive season, as our poetry form for this last prompt is rhyming recipe, a culinary recipe in a rhymed verse.  She tells us that this verse form ‘was common in the 19th and 20th centuries and used as an easy way to remember recipes. Rhyming recipes used to be common in England, they date back to the days when few cooks could read or write.’

One example she gives of a famous rhyming recipe was written by Shakespeare, and is the witches’ spell from Macbeth.  She gives further examples from Sydney Smith and Stephana Malcolm, both from the 18th century.

The Rhyming Recipe is written in any verse form at the discretion of the poet; rhymes, usually in rhyming couplets, but the poet can develop any rhyme scheme; and describes the steps in preparing a culinary dish.

43 thoughts on “Mince Pies for Lucas”

  1. Another dish I have never had. so many things that are unfamiliar to me… I know about suet (and I don’t think we can get it) but vegetarian suet sounds even harder to get… but I love the reason fo making those little pies… passing it down to a child is just great.

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  13. Two of mine make mince pies at Christmas. They can even get hold of vegan mincemeat. One of the girls brought a box of Mr Kipling (makes exceedingly good cakes) mince pies last week and they were surprisingly good. Pastry was too sweet for my taste, but other than that, I recommend. And they’re vegan.

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    1. I haven’t eaten anything Kipling since the time when my mum was still compos mentis – she was a huge fan. If (pun intended) I have a mince pie, it will probably come from Waitrose, where my husband works part-time as a delivery driver – if he remembers to bring some home. I don’t like using the oven too much because of the expense of electricity.

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      1. I didn’t even know they still existed! I haven’t eaten one since my gran bought them as a special treat when we all went to her house after Sunday Mass!
        Our oven runs on bottled gas. The big expense is hot water, electric cumulus. Heating fuel is wood. I had to laugh when my sister came and saw the ‘wood burner’. She was imagining the kind of thing they have, massive and modern that heats the whole house. Ours is more like the brazier you used to see on construction sites for the workers to defrost their hands.

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  15. Wow, Kim! You mastered the rhyming recipe challenge here. Love how you give us all the info to make these ourselves. I think mincemeat is one of those “love it or hate it” foods but it sure is a beautiful treat at Christmas. I can hardly believe that Lucas is five already!

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