Viennese Whirl Mince Pies (2024)

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Home • Recipe • Christmas • Viennese Whirl Mince Pies

Ingredients:

Butter or Margarine
In terms of tradition and richness, butter is what would be used in your pastry and Viennese paste. However margarine makes a great alternative that is not only cheaper but can be dairy-free too. It’s personal preference which you use, but if using margarine just be sure to use a block margarine as opposed to the spreadable kind – the latter will make your pastry in particular too soft, due to having a higher water content.

Caster Sugar & Icing Sugar
One for the pastry, one for the Viennese paste. Caster sugar is used in the pastry mixture, making this not only a rich, shortcrust pastry but a sweet one too.
The icing sugar is much finer and a better choice for the Viennese paste, used to create the Viennese whirl tops on these mince pies.

Free-range Egg Yolk
The addition of an egg yolk to your shortcrust pastry makes the it a bit more indulgent, adding a lovely bit of colour & richness.

Plain & Self-raising Flour
Again, one for the pastry, one for the Viennese paste. Plain flour is ideal for the pastry casings in your mince pies, as this is a shortcrust pastry and doesn’t require a raising agent.
Self-raising flour is used in the Viennese paste as it allows your whirl topping to rise as it bakes, giving them a light, melt-in-the-mouth texture.

Corn Flour
A little secret ingredient for your Viennese paste mixture. Finer than your self-raising flour, cornflour lends itself to a nicer texture in your Viennese whirl topping.

Mincemeat
A jar of mincemeat is perfectly acceptable in these mince pies, or in any mince pie to be honest. Who has time to be making their own in the run up to Christmas anyway?! I like to pimp up my mincemeat with a couple of extras though – a little apple adds some extra juiciness, and some dried cranberries for a modern (& tasty!) touch.

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Viennese Mince Pies

Classic festive mince pies, with a viennese whirl topping.

4.75 from 4 votes

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Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: British, Christmas, Scottish

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings: 12

Ingredients

For the Pastry

75g Caster Sugar
150g Butter or Margarine ((softened))
1 Free-range Egg Yolk
300g Plain Flour

For the Viennese Paste

150g Butter or Margarine ((softened))
50g Icing Sugar
150g Self-raising Flour
1 tbsp Corn Flour

For the Filling

200g Mincemeat
1 small Apple
Handful Dried Cranberries

Instructions

Pre-heat your oven to 200°c (180°c for fan-assisted ovens or Gas Mark 5) and grease a 12-hole tart/cupcake tray with a little butter/margarine.
First prep your mince meat - mincemeat straight from the jar is fine but adding some apple and cranberries gives your mince pies a little more interest. Peel, core and chop your apple into 1cm cubes and mix into the mincemeat. Add a handful of cranberries also. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter/margarine and sugar for the pastry, before adding the egg. Mix until combined before adding the flour and mixing to form a dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to chill for about 30 minutes.
On a floured work surface, roll out the dough quite thin and cut circles large enough to line each hole in your tray. Gently place into your prepared tray, pressing the pastry into place.
Fill each pastry casing with mincemeat - enough to fill generously but not come over the top edge of your pastry casing.
In a medium bowl, cream the butter/margarine and icing sugar for the Viennese paste, before adding the flour and cornflour, mixing to create a soft paste. Transfer the paste to a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle.
Pipe the viennese paste from edge to centre of your filled mince pies, making a swirl on top.
Bake in your pre-heated oven for 20-30 minutes until a light golden colour on top. Allow to cool in tray for approx 15 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Dust with a little icing sugar before serving.

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Recipe originally published in 2018. Updated in 2022.

14 Responses

I didn’t see any blood in the ingredients for “Veinesse Mince Pies” – but it seems to be oozing out of the wound of the cut pie
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1. Hahaha juice of the cranberry methinks
  Reply
have not made the yet they look delicious how long will they last could I freeze them?
jean
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1. Will these pies freeze, please
  Reply
  1. Jean, these freeze just fine
    Reply
I have just made these but when cooled they collapsed in the middle. I did deep filled ones.
They are absolutely delicious and very short. How do I rectify this.
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Fabulous recipe. Made several batches last year and all turned out perfect. Can’t wait to make more this Christmas.
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I made them last year and we all loved them. Have family coming tomorrow so will make a batch this afternoon.
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I have made these for the past 4 years and all my family love them even the one that don’t like mince pies, they are the best mince pies.
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Can you freeze them please
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Made them but the pastry was too short and kept crumbling so only made 8 instead off 12.
I was totally frustrated with the pastry .
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1. Hey Barbara,
  I had exactly the same issue, I’ve since made them again and instead of just using the egg yolk I just used all the egg like. It come together alot better, no crumbling and tasted the same.
  Hope this helps you too. :-)
  Reply
One egg yolk wasn’t enough to bind my pastry. In the end I used 1 full XL egg (incl white) and 1 XL egg yolk and the result is delicious. However…. you say ‘roll out quite thin’ – it would be helpful to know what this means. I rolled to about 1/8 inch and the result is fine. I looked at your pic and thought your pies looked shallower then they would had they been baked in a cupcake tray so I used a standard UK mince pie tray but this meant I used up only half of the pastry! Still I used only just shy of 200g mincemeat (without extra fruit). I know these pies will freeze brilliantly as I frequently freeze Viennese tartlets so I’ve popped those I haven’t guzzled into my freezer and will make another batch to use up the rest of the pastry (which is also now in my freezer). No complaints as the pies are scrumptious but maybe a little more detail would help newbie bakers.
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1. Do you freeze these before baking please?
  Reply