Festive Baking With Lurpak Cook's Range

Being right in the middle of the festive season, how could we avoid baking some mincepies. It's something the kids enjoy doing and J and D have made them before but Miss T had not. So we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to use the Lurpak Cook's Range products we had been sent to try out.

Miss T ready for her #FoodAdventures with Lurpak Cook's Range

I was also keen to try making some Mincemeat Shortbread after being inspired by seeing a 'free from' version on The Free From Fairy. We made up our own recipe for it because we didn't need to do a free-from version.

Both the mince pies and the mincemeat shortbread would need very similar ingredients so it was really quick and easy to bake both recipes and we were even able to use the same mixing bowls etc without having to wash up first.

We often come across recipes requiring 'softened' butter but I'm rarely organised enough to get the butter out of the fridge in time to soften. So I wondered whether the Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid would work as an alternative to softened butter in these recipes.

Here's the mincemeat shortbread recipe first
120g Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid
60g caster sugar
220g plain flour
5-6 tablespoons mincemeat
Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Mist

It's so simple to make - Simply cream together the Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid with the sugar, then add in the flour and the mincemeat and mix together. Miss T found it really easy to cream the Cooking Liquid and sugar together - Much easier than if we were using butter.

Using Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid made it super easy for Miss T to help

As Miss T was helping, we thought we could roll the dough and cut into circles to make shortbread biscuits. With the leftover shortbread dough, I also filled the base of a small loaf tin which would then be cut into shortbread fingers once cooked. Lightly prick the dough before cooking. You could even very lightly score some lines on there to make it easier for cutting once cooked.

We've discovered that another of the Lurpak Cook's Range ingredients is PERFECT for greasing baking tins with. The Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Mist has come to the rescue in all sorts of situations. It makes greasing tins a breeze. So BEFORE pushing your dough into the loaf tin, just give the tin a quick spray with the Cooking Mist first.

The round biscuits were placed on a baking tray onto baking paper.

Then both the biscuits and the loaf tin version of our shortbread went into a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes at 170C.

I noticed that these did brown very quickly so if you like them less golden, you can bake at a lower temperature for longer. You'll know your own oven best.

Now for the mince pies. You'll need: 
250g plain flour
115g Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid
4-6 tablespoons of cold water
Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Mist
Jar of mincemeat filling

Prepare a 12 hole muffin tin by spraying with Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Mist. This prevents the mince pies from sticking in the tin.

Then mix together the plain flour with the Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid and water to form a pastry dough.

Roll the dough thinly and cut circles.

If you don't have a cutter to make the circles big enough for your muffin tin, then improvise by using a large glass or cup or failing that, cut with a cutter and then roll the circle a little more to make it bigger.

Pop the pastry circles into the muffin tin and then fill each with a little mincemeat filling being careful not to overfill. Cut a pastry star to pop on top each one.

Because the Lurpak Cook's Range ingredients help to brown your cooking beautifully in the oven, we actually used a lower temperature for the mince pies and baked them for longer so that they didn't brown too quickly and to ensure they were cooked thoroughly.

So we baked them at 160C for around 30-35 minutes.

We've not only used the Lurpak Cook's Range ingredients for baking but for all sorts of other cooking too - but hopefully this will show just how great the Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Liquid is to use in place of softened butter in these two simple festive recipes.

The Lurpak Cook's Range Cooking Mist really is an absolute dream to use - spraying evenly and lightly. Perfect for greasing tins speedily and effectively.

Thank you Lurpak for sending us these products to try out!