Chocolate Christmas Tree Cakes with a Mincemeat Centre

 

I was sent a really cool cake pan to review by CakeMart (which trades in Germany as Mein Cupcake) - a Wilton Christmas tree silicon cake mould. It has nine cavities which create mini Christmas tree shaped cakes complete with a ridged effect on the sides. I'm a big fan of the Wilton brand and also of silicon bakeware as it's easy to clean and takes up so much less room to store!

I couldn't wait to try these out and decided to make chocolate cake following this BBC recipe, but I also wanted to put a fresh twist on it.




I had some mincemeat left over from making this mincemeat tart so decided to see what the cakes would turn out like if I baked a spoonful of mincemeat into each one. So I sprayed the cake pan with Cake Release and half filled each cavity with chocolate cake mixture, then a spoonful of mincemeat, then the rest of the chocolate mixture.

I baked them in the oven for about 20 minutes, checking with a skewer to make sure they were done, and when cooled eased them out of the pan. They came out easily and definitely looked Christmas tree shaped!

They needed decorating of course and I decided to try two methods, buttercream and candy melts. I mixed some butter and icing sugar to make buttercream, added green food colouring and filled a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle. I went around each cake from the bottom piping a small blob and pulling the tip away, moving upwards a layer at a time, in the hope that these would resemble the pine needles. I decorated the trees with different coloured dragees (balls) which I thought gave the effect of fairy lights on the tree.






For the other tree I took a bag of green Wilton candy melts and melted them in a mug in the microwave. Then I stirred in a little vegetable oil to thin the mixture. I tried holding a tree cake upside down and dipping it into the candy melts but found it easier to use a spoon to cover them. I decorated these with little gold balls - which do you think looks best?





I was really pleased by how the cakes tasted as well with the combination of chocolate and mincemeat so do give this a try!

I'm sending my festive tree cakes to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker.

I'm also sending them to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen.

 

Plus Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat the Baking Explorer, as their theme is red and green or Christmas.

 

 

And finally I'm sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabber UK as the theme is festive fun.

 

 

Mincemeat Tart

I had a lot of ingredients left over from my Christmas pudding and realised that many of them were found in the recipe for mincemeat – that is, the traditional English mince pie filling, a sweet pastry that is nothing to do with Shepherd’s pie or spaghetti Bolognese!

 

My fiancé loves mince pies though I’ve never been keen, so I decided to make a bit of a twist on the idea and make a giant one – but to make it a bit healthier, I wanted to make a mince tart rather than a pie, with a lattice top.

  

With something so traditional as mincemeat who else to turn to but Delia Smith? I used this recipe

 

 

 

 

and did leave the flavours overnight to infuse. However, I left out the suet as I didn’t have any, and I’m sure when I made mince pies before I didn’t add suet – I’m not sure these days it’s really something people use in cooking. The mixture turned out perfectly well without me doing this.

 

 

Lack of time meant that I used ready made shortcrust pastry. I lined the bottom of a pie tin and spooned in the mincemeat filling. I used my lattice cutter to make the top of the pie, though I'm still not very good with getting to grips with it! I brushed the top with milk, and cooked it in the oven for about 25 minutes until the top was golden brown. My fiancé really enjoyed it – while I stuck to an apple crumble as I had fruit that needed using up, but he doesn’t like apple!

 

 

I’m sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen, as it's a very Christmassy recipe.

 

 There is nutmeg in my mincemeat mixture so I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter I have chosen this month is N.

 

 I'm also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Janie at the Hedgecombers, as their theme is sugar and spice.

 

 

Less Sinful Mince Pies

I am sure I am in the minority when I say I have never eaten a mince pie - then again do Americans eat mince pies? I've never been keen on any of the ingredients of mincemeat (which for anyone who doesn't know, does not actually include meat) and so never wanted to try one. I've also been trying to lose weight for years and so it seemed pointless to try a mince pie in case I did like them and it gave me one more thing to overindulge in at Christmas!

When we had a pre-Christmas food tasting at Slimming World it seemed a good opportunity to make mince pies and try a less sinful recipe - they are not completely encased in pastry so would almost certainly be lower in calories than the shop-bought kind. In fact Slimming World says a basic standard mince pie from a supermarket is 12 syns going up to 21 syns to one from a coffee shop, whereas their own recipe for mince tarts - without full lids as shown above - are only three and a half syns each. The pastry is unsweetened which also cuts the calories but hopefully they will still taste good.

The Slimming World recipe just says to use mincemeat for the filling and I wanted to make my own. I decided that Mary Berry's recipe looked good - I trust her for something traditional like this, and I also liked the fact that this recipe didn't use suet as I knew if I bought a whole box I wouldn't use it for anything else.

I followed Mary's recipe but added some chopped French glace cherries and used cherry brandy as my liqueur as I thought that would go well together. It was really easy to make -basically just stir everything together in a pan.

To make the pastry, cut 110g butter or margarine into small cubes and work into 225g plain flour with your fingertips. Add a pinch of salt and gradually add cold water a little at a time until you have a pliable dough.

Wrap the dough in cling film and put in the fridge for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 175C. Lightly spray some cupcake trays with Cake Release. Roll out the pastry and cut half of it into rounds with a cutter. Press into the indents in the cupcake tray. Spoon in about 1 heaped tsp of mincemeat per tart.

Use a festive cookie cutter to make a shape for the lids - I used Christmas trees.
Place the lids on top and bake for 15 minutes. Sprinkle with icing sugar if desired.

I took these to my Slimming World group but still didn't actually eat one, so I can still say I've never eaten a mince pie!

I'm hosting Alphabakes this month (it's Ros from the More Than Occasional Baker's turn again next month) and the letter is X. We are allowing Christmas recipes so I'm sending in these mince pies.

I'm also sending this to Family Foodies, hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash, and on alternate months Louisa at Eat Your Veg as the theme is festive food.

 This month's Vegetable Palette challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen, has as its theme Christmas fruit and veg. My homemade mincemeat uses cranberries, dried fruits, sultanas and raisins, glace cherries - all quite festive!

I'm also sharing these mince tarts with Treat Petite, hosted by Kat at the Baking Explorer and Stuart at Cakeyboi, as they also have a Christmas theme this month.