Mince pies

Now is the time of giving. Of giving people baked goods they may or may not actually want. But who can refuse a mince pie? Especially one made from scratch right down to the butter in the crust and the candied citrus peel in the mincemeat.

Two weeks ago I did a trial run. I made a 10-inch pie crust not knowing how many pies I would get out of it or how much filling it would take. I cut the bottoms out with a 4 inch round cookie cutter, the tops with a 2-3/4 inch cookie cutter and the vent holes with a petal tip. I ended up with six pies, although I probably could have squeezed out a couple more, and it took just under half a pint of mincemeat.

It is rather a tedious process, putting together mince pies, so it really makes more sense to do a lot of them at once. I have an entire quart of mincemeat in the fridge so if six pies used less than half a pint I have at least 24 pies still to make, which means 4 10-inch pie crusts. And if Jane eats twice as many mince pies as Sally...

But then you get them in the muffin tins and they're so very cute and worth all their tediousness. And then you get to wrap them in waxed paper and give them to people, which is really the most satisfying part of all.