One of the things I miss about the English festive season is mince pies -- little ones, that is, passed round as a snack, not the full-sized ones that sometimes turn up at Thanksgiving
Last year I didn't think of it until too late, but this year I laid in a jar of mincemeat when it was in the shops at Thanksgiving, along with a pack of piecrusts and some foil mini-muffin trays. (I think I had some proper jam-tart trays, once upon a time, but they didn't come with me across the Atlantic.) Tonight I made a trial run of a dozen, which left me with slightly less than a piecrust over -- half of it having been carefully re-rolled with a cylindrical coffee cup from the scraps; my largest and smallest round cutters turned out to be exactly the right size for the top and bottom pastry rounds, but it was tricky brushing on egg and milk without a brush. I dabbed with a teaspoon, and it more or less worked, and after about 12 minutes in the oven they came out pale gold and apparently cohesive, so I'll call that a success -- and try to pick up some more crust and a pastry brush, if the grocery store has such refinements, tomorrow morning.
