Mince Pie Bakewell Squares

An easy alternative to mince pies! Pastry base, fruity mincemeat layer, almond sponge, icing drizzle

Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Keyword Dessert

Prep Time 50

Cook Time 35

Total Time 1 25

Servings

Calories 642kcal

Author thebakingexplorer

Ingredients

For the pastry

150 g Butter cold
300 g Plain flour
35 g Caster sugar
3 tbsp Cold water or milk

For the sponge

250 g Baking spread softened
250 g Golden caster sugar or regular caster sugar
4 Eggs large
1 tsp Almond extract
125 g Self raising flour
125 g Ground almonds
½ tsp Baking powder
400 g jar of Mincemeat
50 g Flaked almonds

For the icing

2 heaped tbsp Icing sugar
Water to make a thick paste

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Grease and line a 12" x 9" traybake tin
Start by making the pastry. Rub the butter into the plain flour and caster sugar until it resembles breadcrumbs. You can use your fingers or a food processor to do this. Add the cold water (or milk) and bring the mixture together to form a dough
Tip the dough into the tin and spread it out into an even layer, pressing it down with your fingers until compact and even. Prick it all over with a fork. Chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 160C Fan/180C/350F/Gas Mark 4
Bake the pastry for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden on the edges, take it out and set aside. Leave your oven on
Make the sponge by mixing the butter and the golden caster sugar together, ideally using an electric mixer for 3 minutes
Mix in the eggs and almond extract
Gently whisk or fold in the ground almonds, baking powder and self raising flour
Spoon the mincemeat over the pastry base and spread it out
Gently spoon the cake batter over the top and spread it out into an even layer. Sprinkle over the toasted flaked almonds
Bake for 35 minutes or until it is a lovely golden brown all over, and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool completely in the tin
When fully cool, mix the icing sugar with water and pipe it over the sponge in a zig zag pattern
Cut into squares and serve. Store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 3 days

Video

Notes

Make sure all your cake ingredients (particularly the butter and eggs) are at room temperature before you start baking the cake. The butter for the pastry should be cold.
For the pastry, you can either cut the butter or baking spread into chunks, or if you are using block butter you can grate it into the flour using a cheese grater.
You can use either baking spread or butter for both the pastry and cake layers. I prefer butter for the pastry and baking spread for the cake.
If you can't get hold of golden caster sugar, regular caster sugar will work well too.
I like to use a good quality mincemeat for the filling (and preferably one with some added booze - it is Christmas after all!) or of course you can use homemade mincemeat.
Although I provide cup measurements, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients out using digital kitchen scales*. It is the most accurate way to measure ingredients and will ensure the best results. Digital scales are very low cost and can be purchased for around £12 ($16.50) .
For teaspoon (tsp) and tablespoon (tbsp) measurements, please use measuring spoons* and not the type of spoons you eat with. Again this will ensure accuracy and provide the best results.

To make this recipe in a 9" square tin you will need:

For the pastry: 113g butter, 225g plain flour, 26g caster sugar, 2 ½ tbsp water

For the sponge: 187g butter, 187g golden caster sugar, 3 eggs, ¾ tsp almond extract, 94g self raising flour, 94g ground almonds, ½ tsp baking powder, 300g mincemeat, 38g flaked almonds

Nutrition