Mince Starts

Sous Chef J always likes the look of jam tarts when we're out in the supermarket.  However, we rarely buy them (even when offered in a gluten free range like Waitrose have) but we do try to make 'something' at Christmas time.  This year we thought a sort-of-mince-pie would be a fun undertaking.  Topped with a marzipan star instead of a pastry lid and, thus, the Mince Start was invented!

So, being the convenience cooks that we are, we delved into the depths of the freezer and recovered a long forgotten slab of pre-made, shop bought, gluten free pastry.  This is from G Free and, once defrosted, we were impressed with its pasrty-ness.  Having risked making our own gluten free pastry in the past, which was very crumbly, we tend to steer clear of pastry-requiring recipes.

With defrosted pastry, a jar of mincemeat, some marzipan and a 12 cup bun tray at the ready we set to work.  Sous Chef J used an old butter wrapper to grease the baking tray and I started to roll out the pastry.  Using a little cornflour, it was an easy task to get the pastry rolled to an even thickness (or thin-ness as J calls it).  Then, rounds, slightly larger than the baking tray holes, were cut from the pastry and these were placed into the tray.  Next Sous Chef J dolloped heaped teaspoons of mincemeat into the cases whilst I cut out small stars from thinly rolled marzipan.


One star was placed atop each mincemeat tart before the tray was baked in a 170ºC oven for about 20 minutes.

Having been cooked, the tarts were cooled in their tray for a few minutes before being placed on a cooling rack.

We then added a dusting of icing sugar and the Mince Start was ready to be taste tested...