One last batch of Mince pies

Making Mince Pies on a lovely afternoon.

My cousin always eats a mince pie every day over the Festive season to bring good luck for the year ahead, sort of like 'a mince pie a day keeps the doctor away.'  So I follow her example. Then for the rest of the year, no mince pies until December. Today though I noticed an opened jar of mincemeat in the fridge and thought no way could that keep fresh for another eleven months, so just the thing to do on a cold January afternoon is to make one last batch of mince pies.
 Just for a change I tried a different type of pastry and it gave them a new year flavour.

January Mince pies

200g plain flour
25g cornflour
25g icing sugar
pinch of salt
150g butter, cubed
1 egg yolk
1 - 2 tbsps. cold water
mincemeat
milk for brushing


Heat the oven to 170 c
Sieve the plain flour, cornflour, salt and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl and add the butter cut in cubes. Gently rub in the butter using your finger tips until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.
Add the egg yolk and the cold water and mix together quickly using a cold knife. Flour your hands and form a ball.
Sprinkle some flour on the table and then gently roll out the dough to 3mm thick and then cut out 12 circles and 12 star shapes using a pastry cutter.
Butter a tartlet tray and then line them with a round shape.
Put a teaspoon of mince meat into each pastry case.
Brush the edges with milk and top with a star shape.
Brush with more milk and then bake for 15 - 20 minutes until golden brown.
remove from the oven and let cool for about ten minutes and then using a knife gently ease them out of the tartlet tray and cool on a wire rack.
Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Just the thing for a cold winter afternoon.
Enjoy

Everything at the ready

Rolling out the pastry is always fun

Cooling down while the waters boiling for the tea

Banana Bread for a speedy breakfast

 

I used to think the words to this song went like this, 'Highly deadly black banana'.....

Banana bread is a perfect breakfast for people in a hurry in the morning and a perfect way to use those bananas that have lost their appeal and are lurking in the fruit bowl.
This is an easy recipe and keeps well, it can also be sliced and then wrapped in plastic wrap and frozen in plastic freezer bags.


100g butter, at room temperature
100g brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
3 or 4 bananas, mashed with a fork
45ml yoghurt
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional)
3 - 4 dates, rinsed and chopped
40g chopped walnuts.



Heat the oven to 180 and butter and line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
Beat the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon until creamy.
Add the egg and beat until smooth.
Add the mashed bananas and the yoghurt.

Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and cinnamon if using and gradually beat into the banana mixture.
Stir in the chopped dates and walnuts and then pour into the prepared loaf tin.
Bake for about an hour or until a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Turn onto a wired tray to cool, decorate with chopped walnuts.
Spread the slices with butter if liked.

All ready to start

There's something about a snowdrop

Here is my poem about looking for signs that Spring will soon be here.

Looking for Snowdrops

There's something about a snowdrop
That lifts my spirits high
It surely is a sign
That winter's passing by.

There is a lot of beauty
In a rosy, frosty dawn
Sparkling ice around a lake
Snow sprinkled on the lawn.

 Crumpets sitting by the fire
 Hot chocolate in a bar
Walking home at twilight,
Guided by a star.

For Winter is an empress
Dressed in fur so white
Her jewels are silver icicles
And golden stars at night.

But after months of long dark nights
We start to look around
For the signs that Spring is on the way
Right there upon the ground.

Among the dry, brown Autumn leaves
That haven't blown away
The brave and graceful snowdrop
Says Spring is on the way.


By Angie


Here is another poem about the snowdrop written by William Wordsworth:-

To a Snowdrop, William Wordsworth

Lone flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they,
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise!
Blue-eyed may
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years.