A Rich, Booze-Laden Beast of a Pie That Brings You Closer to God!
This is no ordinary mince pie. It’s an artisan product, prepared with care and tradition at its heart. Deep-filled, rich and booze-laden, it’s ideal to share as a dessert or afternoon treat, served warm with cream or brandy butter. But the best description comes from its maker, Josh Whitehead. Brimming with enthusiasm and humour, his words read like an ode to the mince pie:

Josh Whitehead, Finer Pleasures
I’d say that it’s fair to judge a pie maker by their pork pies. As a kind of indicator of them as a pie maker. A business card if you will. I’d also say, that business card is seasonal, or at least it should be. And in the winter, you can judge a pie maker by his mince pies.

I will say that usually, down to a crippling amount of imposter syndrome, I am pretty terrible at patting myself on the back. However, in this case, I’d bet my bollocks on this mince pie. Not that I necessarily think this is the best mince pie in the world or that it’ll be your new favourite, but for me personally, it’s the best one I can remember having and it is certainly my favourite. And the fact that it’s my mince pie, makes that a big statement for me to say.

I’ve been working on and tweaking the recipe for this for about three years or so now and I will likely continue to tweak it. It is based on a recipe from Hannah Glasse in her book The Art Of Cookery Made Plain & Easy from 1747. Whereby traditionally, mince pies would actually contain meat, usually of a lesser quality and of questionable safety, where the spices would come to save the day. Over the years this has slowly evolved into what we now know as a mince pie, which uses the traditional baking ingredient, suet.

So, in somewhat of a complete 180 from the almost putrid and poor-quality meat used in mince pies of the past, we have used the very clean, buttery soft and beautifully flavoured fat from Swaledale butcher’s native breed cattle. Packed with dried fruits that have been soaking in a heady mix of Armagnac, Aged Port, Madeira and homemade ginger wine since July. There are also cep mushrooms slowly cooked in a brown sugar syrup and dried until toffee like and there’s also, honestly, bovril. If you are still reading at this point, then I’ll assume that the addition of a little bovril into the recipe wouldn’t be enough to shock you and that you trust me that it works. Imagine what people thought of the guy that first made a miso caramel, that worked out well in the end didn’t it? So, it stands to reason that makes logical sense that a bit of bovril will make it into a beef fat mince pie.

Cook at 185°C for around 30–35 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Allow to stand for two minutes to avoid a scorched windpipe but do eat warm and a dusting of icing sugar to finish puts one closer to God.

Brandy butter is good with this, but my preference is either custard (Bird’s, nothing else) or cold cream, and f*cking loads of it.

Merry Christmas