Date & Walnut Mince Pies

Hey gorgeous!

So this week I decided that Mince Pie Monday should totally be a thing… Who agrees?

I also want to share with you an old favourite recipe with a slight tweak of adding dates and walnuts that has come out every Christmas since I started experimenting with healthy alternatives that taste just as good (dare I say, if not BETTER) than the real deal!

Of course the festive season wouldn’t be the same with out mince pies, so why not give Mr Kipling a break and make your own using a selection of fresh ingredients you can easily grab from your local store? Not only super fun to prep but they are perfect to box up as pressies to give to your loved ones.

For me, there is nothing quite like that hit of the sweet dates and creamy walnuts inside the buttery melt in the mouth pastry, which I make using wholesome spelt flour. Pair with a hot mulled wine (’tis the season!) and you have yourself the DREAM festive treat.

Time to get your glow AND bake on… Enjoy! X

The Recipe

Ingredients

350g of spelt flour or gf flour

100g of coconut sugar or brown sugar

1 pinch of salt

220g of butter or coconut oil

3 egg yolks

Mince meat filling:

200g of chopped dates

100g of walnuts, chopped

1 tsp of clementine zest

2 clementines juiced

2 cloves

½ tsp of nutmeg

½ tsp of cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

Directions

To make the date and walnut mince meat, place all the ingredients in to a pot and cook for 7-10 minutes until the juice has evaporated and all of the flavours have amerced. Leave this to cool.

To make the pastry place the flour, coconut sugar and butter/oil in a food processor and blitz. Add the salt and then the egg yolks one by one. Take the dough out roll into a ball and wrap in clingfilm, place in the fridge for 30 mins to chill.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Roll out the dough onto a floured surface until it it is ½ cm thick.

Butter or oil a muffin or cupcake tray and cut circles into the pastry so as to fit your muffin or cupcake tray. Once the pastry is in place in a few spoonfuls of the mince meat so it is full to the top.

Repeat until you have around 12 full then use the rest of the pastry to seal the top you can cut out star shapes or hearts. I made these one handed while burping Shay so I apologise that they aren’t as pretty so do me proud and go all out!

Place them in the oven for 25 mins until golden then remove and sprinkle over some desiccated coconut so it looks like snow. Enjoy!