I really love mince pies and the ones that my mama makes in England are a resounding memory of Christmas from an early age. Since I stopped eating gluten and sugar, I’ve found it difficult to recreate pastry, but I love the texture of these! They don’t taste like your standard English, shop-bought ones, but they are amazingly rich. They also use completely natural sweeteners and don’t have half the preservatives and sugar that regular ones do.
Makes 12 mince pies
Ingredients
Pie filling
- 1 cup orange juice
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup currants
- ½ cup dried apricots, chopped into 1 cm pieces
- 3 small apples, cored and cut into 1 cm wide cubes
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- ½ tsp. ground ginger
- ¼ tsp. ground cloves
- ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
- 2 Tbsp. coconut oil
Pastry
- 2 ⅓ cups ground almonds
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 5 Tbsp. coconut oil
- 4 Tbsp. cold water
- 18 dates – blended in a food processor
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Lightly grease two, 6-cup muffin tins with coconut oil and set aside.
Place all pie filling ingredients into a saucepan on medium-low heat. Stirring frequently, let the mixture bubble gently for 25-30 minutes until the apple is broken down. Set aside.
For the pastry, add the ground almonds, rice flour, coconut oil, blended dates and water to a food processor and blend until a smooth mixture forms.
If you don’t have a food processor, I suggest thoroughly mixing all ingredients by hand in a large bowl until a dough forms (ensure that the dates are blended before you do this.)
Spread extra brown rice flour on the worktop and roll out the pastry until it’s about ½ cm thick. Use 9 cm circular cookie cutters to create 12 pie bases. Use a small star-shaped cookie cutter to cut out an equal number of pastry stars (these will be the pie tops).
Push the circular bases into the greased tins. Bake for about 10 minutes, until they look firm and are starting to turn golden.
Remove from the oven and fill each pastry base with 2 Tbsp. of the filling and top with a pastry star. Place back into the oven to bake for a further 15 minutes until the stars are golden and cooked.
Remove from the oven and allow the pies to rest in the tins for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a wire cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes. Enjoy!
Nutrition facts per serving
Calories 533; protein 13 g; fat 35 g; carbs 45 g.
Recipe via Vancouver With Love.
