How to Make Your Own Vegan Mince Pies
Originally a savoury recipe, today the pies are made with fruit-based mincemeat, a blend of dried fruits and spices.
These vegan mince pies (The Coconut Collab) use a simple homemade pastry made with coconut oil, sweetened with maple syrup and then topped with their own delicious coconut yoghurt, then dusted with icing sugar.
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (dried fruits, nutmeg, chocolate and fresh dough are not safe near animals). Read more on keeping pets safe at Christmas (holly & other items to avoid).
Most mince pies on sale contain palm oil (the term ‘sustainable palm oil’ is just self-policed by industry, and has no legal guarantee that the forest homes of orangutans and other endangered creatures are being destroyed).
In addition, palm oil is full of saturated fat and flown half away across the world from Indonesia, before being made into mince pies that are then over-wrapped in plastic packaging. So why not instead have a go at making your own?
A quick look at a supermarket mince pie box finds a huge amount of ingredients including refined sugar, palm oil, glucose-fructose syrup (another sugar that contains sulphites which many people are allergic too), butter and milk (both likely not from free-range farming).
The best-selling premium brand also contains most of these ingredients including a huge amount of sugar.
Recently one supermarket had to pull its own mince pie brand from the shelves, after it was found the pies contained dried glue, that had accidentally made its way into the pies from the packaging.
Although some premium vegan mince pies brands are on sale, they are only sold in a few stores and are also very expensive, so unaffordable to most people.
These vegan mince pies (Madeleine Olivia) are super-simple to make, and require no store-bought pastry.
Just mix chilled palm-oil-free vegan block butter with flour, then add salt and water to make a chilled dough that you roll into pastry. Then just fill the cups with ready-made mincemeat, bake and dust with icing sugar.
Spelt Mince Pies (Doves Farm) use an ancient flour that is easier to digest than white flour, and has a mild nutty flavour.
These use a simple homemade mincemeat (grated apple and orange rind, dried fruit, brown sugar and mixed spice). Homemade mincemeat must be poured into sterilised jars.
If this is too much of a faff, then just buy readymade. Look in indie health shops for Authentic Bread Company’s Organic Mincemeat, handmade to a traditional recipe, using Herefordshire apples soaked in cognac.
Where to Buy Good Vegan Mince Pies
Positive Bakes is an amazing company from Leicestershire which makes vegan afternoon teas (sold with ‘flotted cream’ from Hampshire) all sold in compostable packaging.
The company also makes delicious Christmas Vegan Mince Pie Slices, handmade with a premium blend of fresh apples, raisins, dates, citrus and flaked almonds.
You can order a box of 16 slices (they are also gluten-free and don’t contain palm oil). Use a letterbox guard for online orders, if you live with pets.
