December Joys

The start of December in our house means the Christmas mugs come out along with Christmas music and carols.  Then begins the start of the mince pie baking.  I make so many each year that it gets to be a bit of a joke and we keep count.  This was the first dozen out of the oven and as I transferred them to the cooling rack I realised that these two tins of mine have baked every mince pie I have made since I got married 31 years ago.  Actually I still have quite a lot of my original tins which is quite amazing considering the amount of use they get.

Anyway this first tray was quickly joined by some more and the blackboard recorded that 30 were made.  However as I went to photograph them...

 there was no longer 30 there!

This week they were followed up by another batch taking the score to 60.  

Then I made a batch of Frangipan mince pies yesterday, I really like the almond topping, it goes so well with the richness of the mincemeat, and with eggs and almonds in it sounds almost healthy!  Well that's probably a good excuse to eat one or two (for me) and considerably more than that by my husband and eldest son!  Good job I photographed them yesterday as there are none of these ones left now.

The mince pie tally is now 74!  It will go up even quicker once the Universities break up and my two youngest return home for the holidays.