The majority of us embrace a kind of a "we'll worry about it in January" attitudes to our diets in December.
Which is all well and good until January rolls around and you haul your sofa-shaped ass to the gym to try and work off the holiday indulgences – only to realize that those bloody mince pies take a lot longer to run off than they did scoffing in. Whoopsies.
If you want to get a head start on the eating healthy, however, without missing any of the festive flavour, these super-healthy, raw, gluten-free mince pies are the (tasty) way to go:
Ingredients
For the mincemeat
- 1 red apple (about 100g once peeled and chopped)
- 50g sultanas
- 50g smooth cashew butter
- Juice and zest of ½ orange
- 30g date syrup (about 2 tbsp)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
For the pastry
- 230g almonds
- 80g dried figs
- 85g medjool dates, pitted weight
- 2½ tsp ground cinnamon
- zest of 1 orange
To serve
- maple syrup, for brushing
- 10g finely desiccated coconut, for dusting
Instructions
Peel, core and chop the apple into small pieces. Add to a large bowl with the rest of the mincemeat ingredients and a pinch of salt, and mix.
To make the pastry, place all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until it comes together and is fairly sticky, with no big chunks of nut remaining.
Line an eight-hole cupcake tin with paper liners. Use your fingers to line each hole with some of the mixture, pressing it evenly to create a pie case about ½cm thick. Spoon the mincemeat into each case until they are almost full.
Flatten the rest of the pastry mix on a clean surface and use cookie cutters to cut out eight stars.
Brush with a thin layer of maple syrup, then sprinkle the desiccated coconut on top to decorate. Place a star on top of each pie.
Store the mince pies in the fridge.
(Recipe via
Telegraph.co.uk)
