Christmas fruit mince tarts

These excessively rich but rather delectable little Christmas treats  may look hard to make.  But there’s an easy way – buy what you need ready made.

Ingredients

1 packet short crust pastry
250 gm pottle fruit mince

Method

1. Heat the oven to 200° C
2. Grease a 12-cup standard size muffin pan by brushing lightly with melted margarine or cooking oil
3. Roll out a sheet of pastry till 2-3mm thick and cut into circles with biscuit cutters or kitchen cups or glasses
4. For the base cut the circle a bit bigger than the size of the top of the muffin cup.  For the top, cut a circle a little smaller so it fits across the top of the tart base and filling
5. Put the larger circles into the base of the muffin cups and flatten to fit
6. Fill with 1 – 1½  teaspoons fruit mince
7. Dampen the rim of the pastry top with cold water and press into place on top of the tart. The wet edge will stick to the base to prevent leakage of the filling
8. Bake for 10 minutes until the pastry begins to turn brown
9. Remove from oven and leave to cool on a wire tray
10. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm
11. If you’re making these ahead of time, reheat in a warm oven (120° C) and dust with icing sugar just before serving.