So, for the second day of blogmas I thought I'd share an incredibly quick, easy and cheap recipe for mince pies.

I've priced up the ingredients down below and linked them the Tesco website so that you can buy them as and when you wish.

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Makes 18 pies

Can be frozen uncooked

Nutrition information (per pie):

222 kCal

2g Protein

30g Carbs

11g Fat

7g Saturates

1g Fibre

12g Sugar

0.26g Salt

Ingredients:

225g of cold butter, diced - - - 85p

350g of plain flour - - - 40p

100g of golden caster sugar - - - £1.90

280g of mincemeat - - - 95p
1 small egg - - - £1.25 for 6 free range eggs

Icing sugar (to dust) - - - 78p

Total cost: £6.13

Method:

1. To make the pastry, rub together all of the butter with all of the flour. Then, mix in the full amount of golden caster sugar. Combine the mixture into a ball and knead the dough for roughly 5 minutes. You can chill your pastry in the fridge at this point, or you can skip this step if you're short on time.

2. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C/gas mark 6/180 degrees C for a fan oven. Line cupcake trays with you dough; take a ball roughly the same diameter of a 2 pence piece and flatten it against the tray. Spoon a tablespoon of mincemeat into each of the pastry cases.

3. Make flattened lids for your mince pies using the rest of the dough mixture, ensuring they're big enough to cover each pie. Top the pies with their lids and press the edges together gently to seal in the mincemeat.

4. Beat one small egg and brush the tops of each pie. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Once they've come out of the oven, leave them to thoroughly cool, then pop them onto a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar and you're all done! They'll keep for roughly 5 days in an airtight container.