Festive Treats

 Hello there! Following on from my DIY Christmas decorations post last week (which if you missed you can catch up here) this post will be the recipes for some of my favourite festive treats! These are two super easy recipes, that taste super yummy and always get me into the festive mood. The two recipes that I shall be sharing with you are for mince pies, and cheese straws!

Mince Pies

Ingredients:

-150g Plain Flour

-35g White Flora

-40g Stork

-25g Caster Sugar

-Pinch of Salt

-Jar of Mincemeat

Process:

- Depending on how long your oven takes to heat up, you will need to preheat it to 200°C/392°F/Gas Mark 6

- Rub together the White Flora and Stork into the Plain Flour and Sugar until it resembles breadcrumbs. 

- Add 1tsp water per 25g Flour.

- Bring this together to form the dough. As this is shortcrust pastry, the dough will be quite crumbly so don't worry about it too much! Just try to bring all of the dough together into a ball.

- You now need to get out your rolling pin! Roll out your pastry and you can then start to cut out your pastry. I used one medium and one small round pastry cutters (as remember you'll need a bottom and a top for your pie!). Why not use a star shaped pastry cutter as the top instead? This will make it that bit more festive!

- Place the bottoms of your mince pies into your tray. You will then need to add about 1tsp of mincemeat per pie. Put a little bit of water round the edge of the bottom pastry, and lay the top over. Make sure to press the sides together, and then poke the middle with a fork so the pastry can breathe. Wash with a little water over the top and sprinkle a little sugar.

 

- Pop into the oven for 12 minutes or until golden on top. Take them out and enjoy!

**This must come with a warning- they will go very quickly and you will be the favourite in your house for the day!**

Cheese Straws

Ingredients: 

-100g Plain Flour

-50g Butter

-50g Cheddar Cheese (grated)

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (I didn't actually have any of this, so used Paprika instead!)

(I actually made double of this as I love them so much!)

Process:

- Preheat your oven to 200°C/392°F/Gas Mark 6

- Rub the butter into the flour and add the salt/pepper.

- Add in the cheese.

- Add enough water to make a stiff pastry (add a small amount at a time!)

- Roll out and either cut into strips or use different shaped pastry cutters!

- Put into the oven for 10 minutes or until a pale gold colour.

- Once they have cooled, place them in the freezer. I know what you're thinking, why would you freeze them? Trust me on this, they taste great fresh out of the oven, but taste 100x better out of the freezer!!! 

It's not Christmas unless I have a steady supply of both of these! If you have a go at making any of these please tweet me a picture!

What are some of your favourite festive treats to make?

Love Jess

xxxx