I can't for the life of me ever remember tucking into a traditional mince pie and thinking it was lovely. My mum, god bless her, made about 6 dozen every Christmas and the whole family might eat one each.
I stumbled across this recipe when I was trying to find an alternative festive treat.
Chop the dried fruit up into smaller pieces and add into a bowl with the flaked almonds, broken up Madeira cake, shaved/grated/chopped (depends if you want smooth or chunky...) chocolate into and the Amaretto and bring it all together and soak overnight
Heat the oven to 190
Make the simple pastry by adding the butter, flour and icing sugar in a bowl. Rub it together in the bowl with your hands and when it looks like bread crumbs, add the beaten egg yolks and table spoon of cold water. Bring it together to make a dough and then knead for 5 minutes on a floured surface.
Wrap and chill for 20 minutes.
Before rolling out lightly flour a muffin tin and then cut the pastry to fit your muffin tins.
Spoon some of the dried fruit/amaretto/chocolate mix onto the pastry and bake for 15 to 20 minutes and then let cool in the muffin tins.
With the egg whites, whisk these up with the icing sugar until they form stiff peaks, spoon the meringue on top of the mince pie, place under a medium/hot grill for a few minutes and then enjoy.
Far nicer than a traditional mince pie