Ingredients

• 200g/8fl oz plain flour
• 50g/2oz ground almonds
• 140g/5oz butter, chopped into small pieces
• 1 orange, grated rind only
• 50g/2oz caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 200g/8oz mincemeat
• 1 egg white, lightly whisked
•   caster sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6/fan oven 190C. Put the flour, almonds, butter, orange rind and sugar into a food processor and whizz into crumbs.
2. Add the egg yolk and a teaspoon of cold water and pulse until it forms a dough. Wrap in plastic film and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Roll out the dough thinly and stamp out 18 x 7.5cm/3in rounds. Use to line one and a half 12-hole bun tins.
4. Put a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat in each pastry case. Stamp out nine more, slightly smaller rounds to cover the pies. (You may need to scrunch up pastry trimmings, knead briefly and roll out again to get all the rounds you need.) Using small cutters, cut out stars, trees or other festive shapes from the centre of each round.
5. Cover half the pies with the shapes and the other half with the pastry rounds with the centres removed.
6. Brush the pastry tops with egg white and dust lightly with caster sugar. They can be frozen at this stage, uncooked, in the bun tins, then removed and packed into freezer bags. (Freeze for up to 3 months.)
7. Bake the pies from frozen for 18-20 minutes until the pastry is crisp and golden. Cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack. (If you're not freezing the pies, then bake for 12-15 minutes.)

Notes