The Queen's pastry chef has revealed her secret mince pie recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the significance of the mince pie? ›

They were made from 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his disciples and were all symbolic to the Christmas story. As well as dried fruit such as raisins, prunes and figs, they included lamb or mutton to represent the shepherds and spices (cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg) for the Wise Men.

The reason mincemeat is called meat is because that's exactly what it used to be: most often mutton, but also beef, rabbit, pork or game. Mince pies were first served in the early middle ages, and the pies were quite sizeable, filled with a mixture of finely minced meat, chopped up fruit and a preserving liquid.

Mincemeat is a combination of chopped dried fruits, spices, sugar, nuts, distilled spirits, a fat of some type and sometimes meat. The name is a carryover from 15th century England when mincemeat did indeed have meat in the mix; in fact, the whole point of mincemeat was to preserve meat with sugar and alcohol.

By the 18^th century cheaper cuts of meat such as tongue and tripe replaced the traditional mutton, pork, or beef, and around the middle of the century an even more important change occurred, the transformation of mince pies from a savoury to a sweet dish.

These were nothing like our mince pies of today. They were large, seriously large, and oblong as they were designed to serve a number of people. The pastry case, called a coffin, was just a container for the delicious filling and was never meant to be eaten – well not by the rich!

Nowadays, it's easy to find mincemeat pies still made with beef suet and a small amount of minced meats (usually beef). All-vegetarian mincemeat pies are readily available as well, especially if you purchase a premade jar of mincemeat filling.

The history of how mince pie originated is varied and no one can pinpoint its exact source. Some historians date it back to the birth of Christ, 12th-century crusades or King Henry V.

A mince pie (also mincemeat pie in North America, and fruit mince pie in Australia and New Zealand) is a sweet pie of English origin filled with mincemeat, being a mixture of fruit, spices and suet. The pies are traditionally served during the Christmas season in much of the English-speaking world.

Not only is mince an incredibly versatile meat, it is also packed full of nutrients that can help support good health and wellbeing. With mince, you don't need to eat a lot of it to get the nutritional goodness.

Mince pies = eyes

This is a term used widely in London even to this day, usually to describe a girl's features. Her eyes would be described as Minces, an even more slang term from the original mince pies.

Why is mincemeat so expensive? ›

Mincemeat isn't difficult to make, but it has a lot of ingredients, which can make it expensive to produce in small batches, and it requires at least a day's advance planning to let the ingredients sit.

Some Americans enjoy 'mincemeat', which is a type of sweet fruit pie, which does not actually include any meat at all. There are 'traditional' recipes, and 'English' recipes, that include beef, but few Americans make 'mincemeat pie' with meat.

It has been claimed that eating the snack is illegal in England if done so on Christmas Day. The tradition comes from the time of Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, when mince pies were banned at Christmas, along with other tasty treats.

They became a popular treat around the festive period thanks to a tradition from the middle ages, which saw people eat a mince pie for 12 days from Christmas day to Twelfth Night. Doing this was believed to bring you happiness for the next 12 months.

Some speculation has it that mince pies were illegal to eat on the day of Christmas. However, the only Christmas Day where eating mince pies was illegal was 1644 due to December falling on a day of fasting. Eat all of the mince pies to your heart's desires!

A custom from the middle ages says that if you eat a mince pie on every day from Christmas to Twelfth Night (evening of the 5th January) you will have happiness for the next 12 months!

Mince pies were originally made to celebrate Jesus. They were oblong in shape to represent the manger that Jesus slept in as a baby and have a 'pastry baby Jesus' carved into the pastry. Traditionally one mince pie is eaten for the Twelve days of Christmas.

A Brief History of the Shepherd's Pie

Shepherd's Pie is believed to have been invented in the early 1800s. During this time, housewives were struggling to find innovative ways to recycle the leftovers that their husbands and kids had turned up their noses at. Back then, the struggle was real just as it is today.