Mince pie cookies

It's that time of year, and once again, my resolve to bake up a holiday storm turned to nothing. Well, almost nothing. I did manage these mince pie cookies that I saw in Jamie Oliver's Christmas magazine. I am not a fan of mincemeat pies generally, but something about this incarnation appealed. These cookies are easy to make and they taste like Christmas! Ho Ho Ho!

Mince pie cookies
From Jamie Magazine, Christmas edition

250g unsalted butter, at room temperature
140g sugar
1 egg yolk
Grated zest of one clementine/satsuma/mandarin/whatever you prefer
300g flour
One 411g jar of fruit mincemeat (I had to buy a larger bottle of PC mincemeat and measure out 400g or so)


1 Preheat your oven to 180C/gas 4 and put greaseproof baking parchment on a couple of baking trays.

2 Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the egg yolk and your citrus zest and beat to combine.

3 Sift in the flour and then fold through MOST of the mince meat (you want to hold some of it back to put on top of your cookies before they go in the oven). Stir until it all starts to come together. I used my hands here – easier.

4 Pull biscuit-sized lumps from the dough, put them evenly across the trays and then press down on each one to shape into cookies. Don’t put them too close to each other – they will run out a little while in the oven.

4 Dot some of your saved mincemeat on top of each cookie, and then put them in the oven for about ten minutes. You want them to be golden, but still a bit doughy and chewy in the middle. I found that my oven needed about 15 minutes for this, but hey, ovens are famously different.

The mince pie cookies are lovely warm – with mulled wine – but the ones you don’t eat straight away can be stored in an airtight container, or frozen.

*I bought suet-free mincemeat, because, suet? Gross!
** I didn't bother topping my cookies with extra mincemeat, but you're perfectly welcome to.