... Be Very Downton Abbey

Edwardian Yule Pastries

I'm feeling very Downton Abbey today. I was reading some of the research I'd done on the Edwardian Era and came across a Christmas recipe from a women's magazine, 'The Delineator', dated December 1901. It is for Yule Pastries, the early 20th century version of Christmas Mince Pies.
  I can make those, I thought, imagining the scene in the kitchen at Downton Abbey with Daisy helping the cook prepare all the festive food.
  The fruit mince was easy to make; chopped up raisins, glace peel, glace pineapple and figs boiled for five minutes in orange and lemon juice and a little sugar.
   Once that cooled, I rolled out the sweet short pastry. I cheated here - mine was store-bought, definitely not home-made. I used a small espresso cup size saucer to cut it into rounds, piled some of the fruit mince on & folded the pastry over so they were shaped like Cornish pasties.
   20 minutes in a hot oven and they were done. It took me longer to clean the sticky, floury pastry board and saucepan and bench and hands and cupboard door handles! 
   Not sure if they'd pass muster with the Lords and Ladies, but they taste delicious!