Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius.

2. To make the pastry, rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add in a tablespoon of cold water at a time and knead gently to form a dough. Cover and leave to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.

3. For the filling, finely dice the pear, avoiding the core and seeds. Mix this with the jar of Mincemeat and Ginger conserve until combined and set aside.

4. Roll out the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin and line a loose bottom fluted tart tin, make sure you prick the pastry base with a fork to avoid any large air bubbles forming! Make sure to keep your offcuts safe as we will use them later on.

5. Line the pastry with greaseproof paper and top with baking beans or uncooked rice/lentils. Bake for 15 minutes before removing the greaseproof paper and baking beans - place the pastry case back into the oven for another 15 minutes until it is a light golden brown.

6. Fill your part baked pastry case with your mincemeat, ginger and pear filling, and then decorate with your additional pastry - you could cut out stars, or mistletoe shapes, or as we’ve done on ours, a lattice top!

7. Eggwash your pastry top and sprinkle with sugar before placing back into the oven for a further 25 minutes or until the pastry decorations are golden brown.

8. Leave to cool in the tin before transferring to a wire rack. Enjoy with extra thick cream or even Brandy Butter!