As a kid we had family friends that were American, and in the 90's that was worlds apart for irish country bumpkins.
One of the good things that came out of that friendship was all the naughty food habits they had.
American fluffy pancakes, cookies as big as your head all of which they made themselves. But the one fatty treat that was shop bought was the one and only pop tarts...
I can even remember an episode of the Simpsons, where Homer wanted to stack on the weight so he used pop tarts instead of slices of bread!!!! You knew they had to be devilishly delishious. In truth they were kinda crap but i still loved the idea of them.
So for my festive contribution this year i have come up with none other than the mince pie pop tart. Extremely easy to make and unbelievably tasty, once you use quality ingredients. I bought all my ingredients in Aldi as i food shop there every week and i think its hard to beat them on quality and value.
For this recipe you will need:
1 pack of shortcrust pastry
(For my recipe for shortcrust pastry search perfect pastry)
1 jar of specially selected brandy infused luxury mincemeat
1 medium sized cooking apple (from our orchard garden)
1 egg
Sprinkle of sugar
Pre heat your oven to 200'c
Unroll the pastry on a large baking try keeping the paper under the pastry
With a pizza cutter divide the pastry into 8 even sections
Peal and slice the apple then evenly place the apple onto the centre of 4 of the pastry sections
Next dollop a generous tablespoon of the minc pie filling onto the top of the apple
Now its time to put the lids on our mince pie pop tarts
Uses a fork to crimp the edges of the pop tarts then wash with the whisked egg
Sprinkle generously with sugar then whack them in the oven for 20 minutes
After 20 minutes as you can see the pop tarts are a gorgeous golden colour, the apple as cooked to perfection. And the pairing of the mincemeat and the apple in a match made in heaven...
