Mince pies with blood orange and orange blossom pastry

I first came across this unusual pastry recipe in Nigella Lawson's iconic book: How to be a domestic goddess. Her original recipe is extremely complicated and time consuming, requiring the flour and fat to be frozen, then blitzed in a processor and then brought together as a dough with the liquids. I thought it sounded overblown, even though I'm sure it would give you the most delectable flaky pastry ever, so I adapted and simplified, using the idea of orange juice and orange blossom water as the liquids and making it in the bog standard pastry way. The orange juice and blossom water do add a subtle taste, only just discernible, but it's the texture that it really enhances, producing flaky and crumbly pies. I used blood oranges for the juice in a second batch, (not pictured), which are a little sweeter than regular, but mainly because they gave the pastry a pretty, speckled pink colour which, unfortunately, completely disappeared once cooked.

Recipe : Mince pies

Pastry: 

240g of all purpose flour

60g of lard or vegetable shortening

60g of unsalted butter

juice of one orange

1 tsp of orange blossom water

pinch of salt

Filling 

12 or 24 or more tsp of mincemeat, depending on quantity

1 egg, beaten

To make the pastry, Place the flour into a large bowl, add the salt and then add the lard and butter, broken into small cubes. Rub the flour and fats together with your fingertips until they resemble breadcrumbs. 

Squeeze the juice of the orange into the mixture and pour in the blossom water. Use a spoon to start bringing the mixture together, eventually using your hands to form a dough that leaves the bowl clean. You may find you need to add a little more water, so do so in small amounts until you have a dough with the right consistency. 

Take the dough out of the bowl, form into a ball and wrap in cling wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. 

While the dough is in the fridge, preheat the oven to 475oF and lightly grease and flour a small muffin or tart tray, shaking off the excess flour.

Remove the dough from the fridge and begin rolling out on a floured surface. Roll to about 1/4 inch thick, constantly dusting the dough and rolling pin with flour also. 

Use a cutter, (the fluted edge ones are pretty), or a glass, like I do, to cut circles from the dough. Place the circles into the indents in the tray and repeat until all are full. (You will be left with quite a bit of dough if you just make 12). Now you have a choice. You can either leave your mince pies open on top and make another batch, or you can cut out stars or another shape to decorate the top of each. I chose stars as you can see in the photograph. 

For open top, simply place a tsp of mincemeat into each pastry circle, brush them all with beaten egg and bake for about 20 - 25 minutes until golden. Remove from the tray onto a wire rack and re-flour the tray and make another batch, (you may not have enough for 12 more, but you should get at least half the same quantity again). 

For stars or other shapes, fill with mincemeat as for open top, but this time, roll the remaining dough out again and use a cutter to cut out a star shape. Moisten the star edges with a little water and stick onto the top of the pies. When they are all ready, brush with beaten egg and bake for 20 - 25 minutes also. Remove onto a rack, leave to cool slightly and then dust with a little icing sugar.

Bonus recipe with leftover dough. 

If you find yourself with some extra dough, cheese straws are a great standby and have a tendency to completely disappear in a matter of minutes. 

Simply roll out the pastry to about 1/4 inch thick in a rectangle shape. Sprinkle over enough grated cheese to completely cover, using any variety you like. Turn the pastry in on itself, moistening the edges to seal and roll out again. Cut the pastry into about 4 strips and twist each one several times. 

Brush with beaten egg, sprinkle with a little paprika and bake for about 15 minutes until golden brown.