I’m not much one for fruit mince pies. There, I said it. There is something about the intense sweetness of that blob of mince in the middle of fairly dry pastry that just sticks to my palate and makes me gril (gives me the shivers…and not in a good way).

This year I decided to find an alternative to mince pies and came up with this. Using Tandy’s recipe for Cinammon Buns available here, I blitzed the ingredients for the dough in a blender, rolled it out and spread it with a thick layer of fruit mince. I then rolled it up, sliced it and arranged it into a Christmas tree shape.

The scraps of dough I had left over made great little stars for the tree and once it had cooled, I mixed together about a cup of icing sugar with the juice of half a lemon/orange until it was thick but still made a good drizzle. This made up the tinsel of the tree.

This recipe must be made and eaten on the day but one bite will confirm that it never would have lasted in the house until the next day anyway

The recipe I used for the buns:

• 2 cups cake flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 65g butter, fridge temperature
• 1 egg
• ½ cup buttermilk
• 3 tablespoons water

60-80ml fruit mince

250ml icing sugar

juice of half a lemon/orange or about 30ml juice (if from a bottle)

Method

• Preheat oven to 190 degrees celcius
• Place sieved  flour, salt and baking powder in the bowl of your food processor (or into a bowl if you’re doing it by hand). Add cold butter which you have cut into smaller pieces and blitz for about 30 seconds or gently rub with your fingertips to form a crumble.
• Mix together egg, buttermilk and water together with a fork in a small bowl and add to the food processor while it is still running. Blitz for another 30 seconds until it forms a ball around the blade or (use a knife to mix this into the flour).
• Remove from the bowl of the food processor and lightly knead for 30 seconds. Roll the dough out on a well floured surface to a 35cm x 25cm rectangle.
• Spread about 60ml of fruit mince across the rolled out dough and with the longer edge facing you roll up as tightly as possible. Slice into discs about 1.5cm wide and place onto a well greased baking sheet.

 Bake for about 25 minutes until browned. Allow to cool before drizzling the icing sugar glaze you have made. Allow icing to set before serving (if you can) .