As a child every Festive Season, it was a family tradition to bake these little tartlets, and my work was to ensure that my younger sister was not eating all the dough! She loved it in the raw state. Any how, during these sessions I grew fond of working with pastry dough and how to handle the hot climate of Africa and butter not melting in the dough.

Mum woke us up at 04h30 that given morning, the dough was prepared the day before and all the fun started with the rolling and doing the little shapes on top. Mum made very intricate patterns as gifts for her friends and me and my sisters had so much fun doing any shape we liked. I knew mum made extra dough for “floppies” and those dirty looking dough that seemed to disappear and baked perfect every time. I believe mum and gogo Joyce fixed the dirty ones, when we were not looking. Today I repeat this tradition with children and even though the boys are all grown up men, they do have fond memories of their Gran teaching them the finer things of life. The “laat lammetjie”, my precious daughter never had the opportunity to meet my mum, but through the boys and my stories she sees it in her minds eye. So hopefully I can teach my grand children one day!

Happy baking and have fun creating memories!

Pie dough
170 g (2/3 cup) butter, Room Temperature
200 g (1 Cup) castor Sugar
2 large Eggs
420 g (3 Cups) cake flour
1 tbsp (15 ml) baking powder

Fruit mince filling
500 g fruit cake mix soaked in 1 cup boiling water with 2 tbsp brandy or whisky
100 g (1 cup) nuts of choice
1 tsp cinnamon
Zest of Two Oranges, washed and finely grated or zested

Sauce
150 ml golden syrup
1/4 cup treacle sugar pressed into the cup (Demarera/Muscavado will work too)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence or 2 tbsp brandy or sherry of choice (Alcohol free version with juices or even rooibos tea or clear juice like cranberrie, pineapple,  apple or grape juice.
2 tsp lemonjuice
1 tbsp cornstarch (maizena) mixed with 3 tbsp water
1 extra large egg

Mix all ingredients together and spoon over filling and top with a star!

Pastry
Tip: This dough can be kept for 12 hours in the refrigerator..and it bakes wonderful cookies too!

In a large mixer bowl add the room temperature butter and sugar and begin to cream the mixture, until it is pale and fluffy (approx 5 minutes)

Add the eggs and combine well for a further minute.

Sift the flour and baking powder and add this to the bowl and continue to mix until the mixture begins to come away from the sides of the bowl.

Lay out a sheet of plastic food wrap and tip the ingredients onto this, create an oval and fully wrap in the plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Fruit mince filling
While the pastry is chilling prepare the Fruit Mince Filling, pour the Fruit Mince into a medium bowl, chop the nuts into tiny to medium pieces, and zest the oranges.

Combine all ingredients together and set aside.

Pastry cases
Preheat Oven to 180C. Prepare mini muffin trays with liberal amounts of cooking spray and set aside.

Roll the dough out into a square and cut circles of 10 cm and set into the muffin tins. Cut remainder of dough into stars or strips. Dough can be re rolled. Fill the holes with fruitmix and devide the sauce spoons full and top with stars or strips.

Bake 25-30 minutes and leave to cool before serving with cream, ice cream or custard.

Servings: 24 muffin sized pastries.
Source: www.annelienpienaar.co.za by Annelien Pienaar 2020