Christmas Star Pies

Shopping List

2 x Apples (recommend 1 x granny smith, 1 x Braeburn)

10 x dried dates (medjool or deglet noor)

1 x orange, zest and juice

25g dried cranberries

2 x shortcrust pastry sheet (recommend: Dorset Pastry Organic Shortcrust)

Pinch cinnamon, grating of nutmeg

Optional Egg for glazing

Desiccated coconut

You’ll need a round cutter, a star cookie cutter and a muffin tray. 

The method

Keep the pastry in the fridge whilst preparing filling.

Kids: Weigh out the cranberries and count out the dates

 Grown-ups: Peel and dice apples into even sized chunks

Roughly chop the cranberries and dates

Together: Put all the fruit into a small saucepan, then add a pinch of cinnamon, zest of 1 orange, grating of nutmeg, and 1tbsp orange juice

Put the pan on to a gentle heat (mark: 4) and cover with a lid.

Stir with a wooden spoon every 5 minutes and encourage the fruit to breakdown.

After 15-20 minutes, the mixture should be soft and mushy, this is perfect.

Transfer to a clean, cold dish to speed up the chilling process – it must be cold before the next stage.

Grown-ups: Preheat oven to 160c fan

Together: It’s time to prepare the pastry – unroll the two sheets and lay them on a clean surface.

First use the round cutter to cut out the bases, pressing the cutter as close to the edges as possible to use up all the pastry.

Transfer the round bases to your muffin tray and gently press them down.

Spoon 1tsp of the chilled fruit mix on to each base

Now cut out your stars from the second sheet of pastry 

Kids: Lay the star on top of the fruit.

If using an egg wash, gently brush this over the top of each start

 Grown-ups: Put the tray into oven and time 16 minutes, check, they should be lightly golden

Let sit for 5 minutes in tray, then transfer to a cooling rack to chill completely.

Meanwhile, ground some desiccated coconut in a mortar and pestle or blitz in blender to create a fine snow-like powder, the perfect replacement for icing sugar  

Together: Decorate and Enjoy!