Festive fare

This weekend Daisy suggested we make something sweet and Christmassy, so we decided to make the most festive of fare - mince pies. We flicked through our cookbooks and scaled down the quantities of ingredients because unlike so many recipes suggested we didn't want to bake three dozen. It was our first attempt after all.

In the end we opted for Delia's shortcrust pastry recipe.

4oz plain flour

1oz butter

1oz lard

2 tablespoons ice cold water

a pinch of salt

After the pastry rested in the fridge for half an hour we made the pastry cases and filled each with a tablespoon of mincemeat; shop bought, but good quality.

Inspired by Nigella, Daisy wanted to make star-topped pies. This was great because I could leave her to it as she happily cut out and transferred all the pastry shapes.

25 minutes in the oven at 200c and our nine little mincemeat morsels were ready. Once cooled, we dusted them with a little snow - icing sugar shaken through a mini sieve. Daisy loved doing that almost as much as tasting her own baking and between us all the pies disappeared incredibly quickly. Now I see why all those recipes are for batches of three dozen; we'll certainly be scaling up next time.