The nice thing about mince pies is that they can officially be made to taste utterly delicious by the official worst baker in the world. They are as hard to mess up as peppermint creams. This is not one of those recipes where if you don’t use precisely the exact measure of butter you might as well throw the entire thing in the bin. These are going to turn out absolutely perfect and fine. Trust me. Also, make them on a Sunday, as you can hang around and read the papers whilst the kitchen starts to smell absolutely and utterly delicious. The only weird ingredient is suet. Yeah. It’s weird. Don’t enquire as to what it actually is too closely.
Mincemeat
200g small cubes of apple
200g raisins
200g sultanas
1 tbsp nutmeg
1 tbsp mixed spice
Juice and zest of one lemon
Juice and zest of one orange
250g suet, cut into small pieces
The night before you need the mincemeat, put all the ingredients in a big bowl and mix well. Leave overnight covered in a clean dishcloth. In the In the morning add brandy (I’ll leave it to your discretion how much) and then stick in the oven at 120ºC/gas mark ½ for three hours.
Let the mincemeat cool and then pop into sterilised jars (to sterilise, dampen jar for one minute in the microwave). Cover with brown paper, then seal. It should keep for up to a year. If it keeps for up to a year, you’re probably giving it to the wrong friends.
For the pastry, rub 200g flour and 200g cold, chopped-up butter together. Add 100g of golden sugar, a pinch of salt and a little water until it is ready to roll out and cut. Pop in baking tins, spoon in mincemeat and put pastry lids on pies. Brush top with beaten egg and sprinkle a little more golden sugar, then 20 minutes at 180°C/gas mark 4, and … ta-dah!
Caroline stomped into the shop the next morning in high dudgeon. Issy looked at her with bleary eyes. She’d hardly slept a wink after speaking to Austin the night before and was on her third coffee. She felt so daft, but it was the unfairness of the whole thing that was getting to her. She’d finally got her life together; she finally felt like she was doing what she had always longed to do and had met a man she loved, and now it was all going horribly wrong.
On a deeper level too, she knew why she was so upset; why she was so bad at talking about all this to Austin. It being this time of year didn’t help … and now … No, she was catastrophising. Taking the worst possible view of the situation. Surely London would give him another job and it would all be fine; he couldn’t possibly want to uproot what they had, how could he? Then she remembered something she hadn’t thought about for a long time: she was at church on Christmas morning, wearing a too-tight red dress, with Startrite shoes that gave her blisters at the back, holding hands with Gramps, who knew everyone, of course, and would have been liked by them even without a bag in his pocket full of gingerbread. A woman she recognised from the shop, posh and loud. She didn’t like her, although she didn’t know why. The woman was wearing a blue hat with a large peacock feather in it, and she leant forward to Gramps and said, ‘She couldn’t POSSIBLY want to leave at this time of year,’ and Grampa Joe hushed her, crossly, more cross than she’d ever seen him.
‘So Richard is turning out to be even more of an UTTER ARSEHOLE than usual,’ declared Caroline, banging the door and whisking her tiny arse – in white jeans, in December – into the shop. She was wearing a huge furry stole thing that made her legs look even more sticklike, and that Issy fervently hoped was fake. Issy blinked herself out of her reverie and tried to wake up as Caroline shook off the cold. It was freezing outside; everything was iced over, and the clouds in the sky were heavy and dense with snow.
‘What’s he done now?’ she said. Caroline’s divorce seemed to be taking rather longer than the marriage had lasted.
‘He said no hampers. No hampers. Can you believe it? He stopped our hamper account.’
Issy looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean? Those boxes with tins in?’
‘They are not just boxes with tins in!’ said Caroline in shock. ‘They are traditional luxury items sent at Christmas as a token of esteem, and are therefore part of my totally normal family expenditure.’
‘But don’t they cost a total fortune for like a can of jam and some fancy nuts?’ wondered Issy. ‘And they’re probably full of stuff you don’t even like, like olives stuffed with beetroot. I always wondered who sent those.’
Caroline sniffed. ‘Everyone does,’ she said.
‘So are the children looking forward to Christmas?’ Issy tried to change the subject.
Caroline sighed dramatically. ‘Oh well, you know what they’re like.’
‘Delightful,’ responded Issy, promptly.
‘Hermia is just looking forward to the opportunity to eat for the entire holiday. I will have to keep an eye on that girl. Can you believe it, she prefers eating a sandwich to practising her flute. A sandwich! I don’t even keep bread in the house!’
Issy made Caroline her small decaf espresso, black, and handed it over. Caroline downed it quickly.
‘Hit me again,’ she said. ‘And can I have it caffed?’
Issy raised her eyebrows. ‘That bad?’
Caroline shrugged. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Well …’ She blinked heavily several times. ‘It’s just … Richard said … Richard said …’ And she dissolved into tears.
‘What is it?’ said Issy, rushing round the other side of the counter.
‘He said …’
Issy suddenly felt terrified for her. He wouldn’t fight for the children, would he? OK, Caroline left them with nannies and ignored them and denigrated them, but … no, surely not.
‘He said that if he’s going to keep paying for them, he wants them sent to BOARDING SCHOOL …’
Caroline collapsed into sobs. Issy put her arm round her.
‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘But I thought you always said that boarding school was the answer to everything and would do all those rioters a lot of good?’
Caroline sniffed loudly and took out a cloth handkerchief. Issy was stunned that she carried a cloth handkerchief, but didn’t say anything.
‘Yes, but not for mmmyyyyyyy …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence.
It was odd, thought Issy. If you heard Caroline talk about them – although sometimes she seemed to forget she had children at all – you would think she wasn’t really that interested; that having children was something she’d done simply because it was expected. She seemed to find them more of an annoyance than anything else.