These Mincemeat Buns are a cinch to make and the perfect festive breakfast. Ready in under 45 mins they’ll satisfy the whole family.
Hiya everyone – Merry Christmas! These Easy Mincemeat Buns will be my last recipe and post of 2021 and… Well, what a year!
I don’t really know where to start with my year. Eventful is one way to describe it. Scary and life changing are two other words. I’m just happy to still be here to celebrate and hopefully next year is easier. I mean, no, I’m not going to wake up on the 1st Jan and suddenly be cured. However, I’m getting lots of tests, so we should understand my body better in the next few months. I’ve always said knowledge is power, once I get a diagnosis, my brain always goes to “right, now we know what it is, I’m going to research it and understand what I can do to help”.
This year I’ve often felt weak, but needed to be strong. I’ve learnt even more so who to keep around me and who to distance myself from. I’ve known how amazing and lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband for years, but none more so than this year. I wouldn’t have got through this year without him. It’s been scary for him too, but he’s never once shown me that fear. He’s been a pillar of strength throughout this whole thing.
I’m really hoping 2022 is kinder to us. I have at least managed this year to get a good team of professionals around me. Be it physios, cardiologists, osteopaths, rheumatologist, haematologist etc. People that understand my conditions and know how to help me. I really think being successful in managing chronic conditions is made much easier by not having to fight medical professionals. I spent years trying to find answers and this year they finally came. I’ve found two amazing doctors at my GP surgery which has made things infinitely better as well.
I will never not be ill, that is something I’ve had to come to terms with this year. It’s almost a grieving process. For the life you thought you would have and then the life you will have. The thing is, my EDS is manageable. My dysautonomia is as well. The blood clots threw me for six, but I’ve got a fab haematology consultant who is doing all the tests.
For most of my life, I’ve been “when we find out, we’ll deal with it”. I still am to a point. But, I can’t say that I’m the same as I was before my clots. I’ve never had to be scared of my body killing me before. Joint problems and heart palpitations are a completely different kettle of fish to blood clots getting as high up as your abdomen. My mental health has really suffered and I’m on the waiting list for therapy. I don’t want to think the worst every time I get a new/different pain or something twinges in a different way than it did before.
Hopefully, I can learn to trust my body again next year.
Right, let’s get onto food. Delicious, easy Mincemeat Buns to be specific. Soft, full of flavour, ready in under 45 mins and perfect for sharing!
HOW DO YOU MAKE THESE EASY MINCEMEAT BUNS?
Let me tell you, these really couldn’t be simpler to make! They are the perfect thing to make if you’re short on time and want a last minute treat for Christmas. No making dough here, there’s too many other things to be doing during the Christmas period. There’s a time and a place for homemade dough, this isn’t it! We are going for quick and easy with this recipe!
I used ready made croissant dough for these Mincemeat Buns. I’ve seen similar recipes made with puff pastry. However, I wanted these to be more akin to Cinnamon Rolls and they aren’t made with puff pastry, but a yeasted dough.
The ready made croissant dough is much more similar to Cinnamon roll dough, but also browns beautifully and gives you that golden, slightly crisp outer layer, while staying soft and fluffy inside.
I’ve used croissant dough before to make easy Cinnamon Rolls and it worked perfectly.
The croissant dough comes pre scored so that you can easily roll it into croissants. However, I ignore those marks for this recipe. I unroll the whole thing and use it as one big piece of dough. To ensure there are enough layers in my Mincemeat Buns, I roll it short side down, rather than long ways. Normally I would roll with the longest edge. However, I tried that before and I ended up with too few layers.
To begin with I spread softened butter onto the dough, then I sprinkle brown sugar on top before topping with mincemeat.
Roll into one giant Mincemeat Roll, slice, place in a greased muffin holes and bake. It really is THAT easy! Bake for 10 mins, uncovered at 200C/400f. Then cover loosely in foil, turn the oven down to 180C/350F and bake for a further 20 minutes. They will be molten when they come out of the oven, so leave to cool slightly before serving. You can drizzle an icing sugar glaze on as well, if you like. Serve them warm from the oven or at room temperature. They taste glorious all ways!
All that’s left for me to say is Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope you all have a wonderful time celebrating if you do and I’ll be back in the new year with new recipes and beauty posts!
Loved this festive recipe? Then you’ll enjoy these too!
Easy Mincemeat Buns
Ingredients
- 2 350g/12.3oz rolls of pre made croissant dough
- 3/4 stick (85g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup (66g) light brown sugar
- 12 oz (340g) jar of mincemeat
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200C/400F and spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.
- I found it easier to measure all the filling ingredients into separate bowls before I started making the rolls of dough. Butter in one, sugar another and mincemeat another. Unless your jar of mincemeat is 12oz, then you can just leave it in the jar!
- Place a silicone mat onto your work surface, or flour lightly. Unroll one of the packets of croissant dough, so the longest edge is folding you. Spread half the butter thinly onto the dough, then sprinkle with half of the sugar.
- Next, spread half of the mincemeat on top of the sugar. You do want thinner layers and for there not to be tonnes of mincemeat. It's fine to have spaces between the fruit. Once you roll it up and bake it, you will realise you don't want it overflowing with mincemeat as it will become a soggy mess.
- To roll, I roll from the short side. I have tried similar recipes with croissant dough and rolling long ways doesn't give you many layers in your roll/bun. Make sure you are gently rolling the dough up, but tight enough that it doesn't have huge gaps.
- Once you have finished rolling up the dough, take a sharp knife and divide the roll into 6. Each roll should be around 1 inch thick. How you place them into the muffin tin is important when it comes to how they will bake and how easy it is to get them out of the pan later. I put two of mine in wrong and the filling leaked out as the middle sort of fell down into the middle. You want the pastry base to bake together so it traps the mincemeat inside!
- The best way I found to place in the muffin tins was to take each roll and spin it round slowly on the worktop with both hands, this shaped it into a perfect circle. Then, I gently picked it up in both hands and, with my fingers, coaxed the bottom of the rolled dough into a rounded cone shape the width of my muffin tin holes. This just closes up the bottom of the bun. You'll still see the layers at the top, but you'll have an actual muffin shaped bun with filling.
- Then, now that the base is narrower and the top is wider, place into each muffin tin. Make sure you've closed that base up and it's the correct diameter for the muffin tin holes, otherwise the buns may collapse in on themselves!
- Repeat the above steps with your other packet of croissant dough, spreading the remaining butter onto it, sprinkling the sugar and spreading the mincemeat before rolling and slicing.
- Place in the oven at 200C/400F for 10 minutes. This will get that initial rise and make the tops golden brown. Then, take a large piece of foil and cover loosely. Turn the oven to 180C/350F and bake for a further 15-20 minutes. Mine took the full 20 minutes.
- The middle will look soft, but set. If you pull them out and the middle looks really wet and there are pools of liquid, place back in the oven. It can be slightly tricky to see if they're done as, obviously, the mincemeat will be bubbling a little. However, the mincemeat is brown, this liquid will be clear and it's from the butter and dough baking.
- Leave Mincemeat Buns in the tin to cool for at least 20 mins before attempting to serve. They're great warm or at room temperature. I also made a glaze when they were cool – 1/3 cup icing sugar and around 1tbsp of water. Mix into a paste in a shallow bowl and drizzle over buns with a spoon.
- Easy Mincemeat Buns will keep in an airtight container, at room temperature, for 4 days.
