Rum and browned butter mince pinwheels

We had friends to stay this weekend so I made some pastries for Saturday afternoon tea and Sunday morning coffee. I still had a jar of mincemeat left over from Christmas and decided to spruce it up with some spiced rum and browned butter.

Cranberry, apricot and amaretto mince pies with almond, orange and cinnamon pastry

It's Christmas Eve-eve and I've spent a very happy day baking - a couple of cake commissions for friends for Christmas, sausage rolls, ginger biscuits, and these fantastic deep-dish mince pies. Made in muffin tins, they have lots of room for really good filling, so I spruced up some mincemeat with dried apricots, blanched almonds, amaretto and fresh cranberries.  The pastry has ground almonds, orange zest and juice and cinnamon in too for extra festive flavour. Merry Christmas everyone!

Rum and raisin mince pies

It's beginning to feel even more like Christmas...  The rum-and-raisin mincemeat was too good to wait until it's even Christmassier to use, so I made some mince pies.  I used the same pastry recipe as the one I used for my recent pecan, rum and chocolate chunk pie - it's so easy I'm not going back to shop-bought pastry!

Christmassy mini-muffins

It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas...  These mini-muffins are full of Christmas flavours of dark chocolate, dried cranberries, rum-and-raisin mincemeat and cinnamon.  Delicious with coffee (try dunking them!)