These are a favourite over the Christmas period in our house, and that is coming from a household who don’t usually like mince pies! Children loving rolling and cutting the pastry out, as well as spooning the apple and fruit mix into each little pie. We hope your little cooks enjoy making and eating these as much as ours do!
Preheat the oven to 160c fan assisted (170c if not fan assisted, gas mark 4)
Place the almonds and walnuts in your food processor and blitz until ground - check every 30 seconds (you can use ground almonds instead of whole almonds if preferred)
Add the egg, honey and bicarb and then blitz again until a dough forms (around 1 minute)
Carefully remove the blade and shape the dough into a ball (use a spatula to scrape the mix off the sides if needed) and pop in the fridge while you start making the filling
Heat the butter, chopped apple, raisins, cranberries, cinnamon, ginger and juice of 1 orange on a low heat in a saucepan with the lid on for around 15 minutes. Stir regularly - if it starts to stick, add a little water
While the filling is cooking take 2/3 of the dough and roll it between 2 pieces of parchment paper to about 2mm thick
Use a circular cutter to cut 12 pie bases and pop them in a greased cup cake tray - bake for 5 minutes
Once baked, fill each base with a heaped teaspoon of the filling
Roll the remaining dough and cut into 12 smaller circles or stars and place on top of each mince pie - bake for 7 more minutes (they don't need to be golden)
Allow to cool before gobbling! Store in a tupperware for up to 5 days
