Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without homemade mince pies. This, however, is a proper cheats version. You can of course make your own mincemeat, but for speed and simplicity we use shop bought with a few extras to stir through to make the flavours sing. Ingredients unsalted butter , for greasing 375 g ready rolled shortcrust pastry plain flour , for dusting 200 g quality mincemeat 1 splash of brandy ½ an eating apple 2 balls of stem ginger 50 g dried apricots 75 g dried cranberries 1-2 pinches of mixed spice 1 large free-range egg 1 tablespoon semi-skimmed milk icing…