Mincemeat Danish Pinwheels
This is a lighter version of mincemeat that tastes delicious with the addition of cranberries. This has been lightened because I haven't used suet. The mincemeat recipe will make more than you need for these danish pinwheels, but you can store it in a jar for use in other recipes. The mincemeat can also be made in advance.
Ingredients
- ***Mincemeat***
- 175 g Raisins
- 100 g Dried Cranberries
- 175 g Sultanas
- 175 g Candied/Mixed Peel
- 175 g Dried Apricots
- 1 Eating Apple
- 125 g Butter cut into cubes
- 50 g Whole Almonds roughly chopped
- 225 g Dark Muscovado Sugar
- 1 ½ Tsp Mixed Spice
- 1 Lemon grated rind and juice
- 150 ml Spiced Rum
- ***Danish Pastry Dough***
- 400 g Strong White Bread Flour
- 40 g Caster Sugar
- 8 g Salt
- 10 g Dried Yeast
- 45 g Butter Softened
- 50 g Egg approx 1 medium and 1 for eggwash
- 160 g Milk
- 250 g Chilled Butter
- ***Icing***
- 15 g Water
- 100 g Icing Sugar
Instructions
- To make the mincemeat, put all of the ingredients apart from the rum into a large saucepan.
- Heat the mixture, allowing the butter to melt. Simmer the mixture very gently, stirring regularly, after 10 minutes remove the mincemeat from the heat.
- Allow the mincemeat to cool completely then stir in the spiced rum or another alcohol of your choice like brandy.
- The mincemeat will make more than you need for this recipe place the rest in sterilised jars. The mincemeat will keep for a few months, maturing the longer it is left. You can then use it in the rest of your Christmas baking.
- The day before you want to eat the pastries, make the base dough by mixing the flour, sugar, salt, yeast, butter and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.
- Mix on a low speed for 10 minutes, then increase the speed to medium and mix for a further 10 minutes.
- Cover the dough and leave to rest for 10 minutes then tip onto a lightly floured work surface, flatten slightly and shape into a square, cover in cling film and refrigerate for 24 hours.
- Take the 250g of butter and cover it in clingfilm, batter it with a rolling pin until it is approximately a 12cm square. Return the butter to the fridge and allow it to chill.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and place it on a lightly floured surface, the dough may have risen slightly overnight, so flatten it down if necessary.
- Roll out the pastry to a 25cm square that is 1cm thick, turn the dough so it looks like a diamond. Place the butter on the diamond of pastry so that it is square. Fold the pastry in to the middle so that it looks like an envelope and then use a rolling pin to flatten the dough down.
- Then roll the pastry into a long rectangle, keep the work surface lightly floured and keep turning it when it has reached 22 x 40 cm fold up one end of the dough and then fold down the other end to encase it, like a letter. Return the dough to the fridge and let it chill for 30 mins.
- Once the dough has chilled repeat the previous step and roll and fold the dough before returning it to the fridge.
- Take the finished dough from the fridge and roll it out till it measures 30 x 40cm, neaten the edges and cut it into 12 x 10cm squares. Take one of the squares and make four 4cm diagonal cuts at each corner. Fold alternate points into the centre to create a pinwheel shape.
- Take a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat and place it in the middle of the pinwheel.
- Do this with the rest of the pinwheels and place them on a baking tray to prove. Cover the pastries with clingfilm and leave them to prove for 1-1hr 30mins until increased by half.
- Preheat the oven to 210C/190C Fan/Gas Mark 6 brush the pastries all over with egg wash and bake for 10-15minutes until golden.
- Leave the pastries to cool before mixing together the icing sugar and water and then drizzling or piping the icing over the finished pastries.