Christmas may be over but these delicious things have gone down so well I'm still making and devouring them....a great alternative for any vegetarians, and they are gluten free!

This list of ingredients made me about 16 little mince pies, with all their lovely misshapen imperfections.

Ingredients

For the 'pastry':
– 400g of ground almonds
– 6 tablespoons of coconut oil
– 2 tablespoons of water
– 20 medjool dates
- 2 eggs
- a handful of Buckwheat flour to roll it out

For the filling:
– 2 red apples
– 1 vanilla pod
– 300g sultanas
– the juice of 3 clementines
– 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
– 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
– 1 teaspoon of ginger
- 1 teaspoon of nutmeg

First start by throwing all the filling ingredients into a pan on the hob and let it simmer until the apples are nice and soft. If it starts to stick to the base of the pan just put in a drop of water to unstick it. It will probably take about 35-45 minutes to get it all nice and soft and sticky.

While that is being done, put all of the ingredients for the 'pastry' into a blender, except the flour and one egg and blend it until it's a big sticky mess!

Turn your oven onto 180c to start heating while you finish the pastry.

When it's done, use the flour to flour a surface, throw a bit in the mix and dust your hands and a rolling pin with it to help you make the mix move to the surface. Use the flour in small portions, you want it to help you move the mix around without sticking to the surface rather than drying out.

Grease some cupcake trays with liquid coconut oil (melt it under hot water if it's solid) so the mix doesn't stick. Then take small balls of mix and squash them, poke them and mould them into each of the cupcake tin spaces, trying to make sure there's still a little bit just over the top (to catch any filling that goes over!). Put them in the oven until they start to go golden brown, which will probably be about 10 minutes or so but keep checking on them!!

Once you take them out, spoon 1-2 tablespoons of spiced apples and sultanas into the pastry bowls you've made. Then with the leftover pastry, try cutting out shapes to put on top, I used stars as it's the cutter I had! Put the shape on top of the mix and use the last egg to brush the pastry shapes on top as well as the top of the pastry bowls you've made which will help them go a lovely golden colour

When you've filled them all up put them back in the oven for another ten minutes or so until deliciously golden brown.

Let them sit for half an hour or so and then enjoy them with a lovely cup of tea!

Let me know how you get on with this one

Ciao for now x