Morgan Shelly, model and clean beauty guru, shares her vegan mince pies recipe.

As Christmas rolls around, so does the imperative purchasing of mince pies. Mince pies are a treat like no other. Their spicy, chunky filling surrounded with a buttery crust beats hot-cross buns and any other festive special in my books. These vegan and gluten-free mince pies give you the exact same satisfaction minus the dairy and double the goodness. They’re easy to make and will make you the dessert king/queen this December.

For the pastry:

• 2 cups of chickpea flour
• ¼ cup of melted coconut oil
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup
• 4/5 tablespoons of water (use more if needed)

For the filling:

• 1 cup of raisins
• 1 cup of sultanas
• 1 cup of almond flour 
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence 
• 1 teaspoon of mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• A pinch of salt
• 1 Tablespoon of maple syrup
• A splash of water
• Optional: 1 shot of whatever alcohol you have - I used whiskey but brandy, vermouth or even Aperol/Campari would work

Method:

For the filling:

In a small saucepan, add the raisins, sultanas, alcohol, maple syrup and vanilla essence. Slowly cook this down on a medium heat. You can add a splash of water as you go to help soften down the mixture. As soon as the raisins and sultanas start to soften, add your spices and almond flour. Cook this down until everything becomes smooshy and spicey. You’ll know when you have the right texture. Leave aside to cool.

For the pastry:

In a large bowl, mix all of your ingredients for your pastry. Using your hands, work the pastry until you have a putty-like texture. Place your pastry in the fridge or freezer to chill. Grease 6 sections of a muffin tray with a good amount of coconut oil.  Once cooled, remove your pastry from the fridge or freezer and save 1/4 and place that back in the fridge - we'll use that for the stars on top at a later stage. Roll out the other 3/4 until about 0.5cm thin. Using a round cookie cutter, or a glass, cut out 6-7cm rounds. Add this disk to your muffin tray, creating little pastry pockets. If the pastry breaks, you can use extra pastry to build up areas that look weak.

Don’t worry if the pastry unevenly overlaps the edges - these crispy bits will be amazing once baked! Repeat until you have 6 mince pie pastry cases. **** the bottom with a fork and then place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes. Set your oven to 180ºC.

Putting it all together:

Remove the pastry cases from the fridge (you can run a knife along the top of the muffin tray to remove the overlapping pastry and neaten up the sides but this isn't necessary.) Bake for 10 minutes until the pastry cases are golden brown.  Once the cases are baked, leave to cool for a few minutes. Remove the remaining pastry from the fridge and roll it out to about 0.5cm thick. Using a star-cutter, cut out stars to place on top of the mince pies. Once the pastry cases are cooled, fill to the brim with the filling making sure to press the filling down right to the bottom. When filled, top with a pastry star, brush with a little maple syrup and bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until the stars on top are golden brown. 

When they're done, cool in the tray and remove when ready to indulge and enjoy.