Mince Pie Pinwheels - My Gorgeous Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the tradition of eating the 12 mince pies? ›

To spread the joy, it was tradition in England that each member of the family gave the mixture a stir, while making a wish. And if you wanted to be ensure good health and happiness in the upcoming year, you should eat one mince pie every day for the Twelve Days of Christmas, from Christmas Eve until the 5th of January.

Creme fraiche Supremely light and kissed with a lactic tang, creme fraiche is the hot mince pie's most elegant cooling counterpoint. Single or double cream Either will grease the wheels, so to speak. Custard There is something magical about the contrast between hot mince pie and cold cream on the same plate.

According to reports, medieval people believed that if you ate a mince pie every day between Christmas and Twelfth Night, you'd be brimming with luck and happiness for the next 12 months. While there may not be any truth in the old myth, the tradition of eating mince pies every Christmas has certainly stuck.

English tradition demands that the mince meat mixture should only be stirred in a clockwise direction. To stir it anticlockwise is to bring bad luck for the coming year. Another English custom is for all the family to take a turn in stirring the mincemeat mixture whilst making a wish.

Go with the tradition and eat a dozen

There is a tradition of eating one mince pie each day over the 12 days of Christmas from Christmas Eve to 5 January.

The early mince pie was known by several names, including "mutton pie", "shrid pie" and "Christmas pie".

And never serve a cold pie. 'Ideally, mince pies for a drinks party will be served gently warmed, but if eating at home you could serve them much warmer with gently melting ice cream, rum or brandy butter. Here, a fork and spoon will be needed to avoid those mucky fingers.

The "mince" in mincemeat comes from the Middle English mincen, and the Old French mincier both traceable to the Vulgar Latin minutiare, meaning chop finely. The word mincemeat is an adaptation of an earlier term minced meat, meaning finely chopped meat. Meat was also a term for food in general, not only animal flesh.

People in the South West eat the most mince pies in the UK, according to research by bakery chain Konditor. Having surveyed 2,000 people, the London-based company found that, on average, each person in the South West eats 24 mince pies across the festive period.

Do they have mince pies in America? ›

Mincemeat pie is a dish that isn't very common in the American kitchen, which can lead to some confusion for cooks, even those on the Allrecipes staff.

Hot, cold or slightly warmed. Top off or top on. Custard, cream, clotted cream, ice cream, brandy cream, brandy butter or, dare we say it, hard, crumbly cheese… The ways to serve a mince pie are practically endless.

A mince pie, though originally containing meat, is a sweet pie, with pastry top and bottom, filled with a sweet mixture of dried fruit, peel, commonly alcohol like brandy, and small pieces of suet( an animal fat, and reminder of a mince pie's meat origins). This sweet mixture is ( confusingly) called 'mincemeat'.

A pie full of spices and meat appears in 1390 in A Forme of Cury, an English cookbook originally written on a scroll, under the name “tartes of flesh”. To make these morsels, cooks were instructed to grind up pork, hard-boiled eggs, and cheese, before mixing them with spices, saffron, and sugar.

By the 18th century it was more likely to be tongue or even tripe, and in the 19th century it was minced beef. It was not until the late Victorian period and early 20th Century that mince pies dropped the meat and had all fruit fillings (albeit with suet). Even today there are traditions associated with mince pies.

Many believe the idea for the mince pie originated with Middle Eastern cuisine in the 12th century, when spices and fruit were often used in savory and sweet meat dishes. Before refrigeration, spices and sugars were used for preservation to slow down spoilage.

During the Tudor period (15th - 17th century) mince pies were made rectangular which symbolised a manger, with a pastry baby Jesus on top. It was typically a main course dish that was created using 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and the 12 disciples.

The history of mince pies can be traced back to the Middle Ages. During this time, mince pies were known as "Christmas pies" and were filled with a mixture of minced meat, fruits, and spices. These pies were often shaped like a manger to symbolize the birth of Jesus.

By the mid-17th Century, there appears to have been some connection made to Christmas, although people certainly ate mince pies at other times as well – Samuel Pepys had mince pies at a friend's anniversary party in January of 1661, where there were 18 laid out, one for each year of the marriage.