I love a good mince pie but sometimes you just need something a bit different. Replacing the normal sweet shortcrust with puff pastry instead gives a different texture as well as rich butteriness and flakiness. Change the shape from a round pie into a pinwheel and you end up with my Mince Pie Pinwheels.

If you want to spend your Christmas making your own puff pastry, then you can read my recipe for making rough puff pastry by hand here.

You can use shopbought mincemeat, you can use your own recipe or you can try my no-alcohol mincemeat recipe here.

I suggest you use ready-rolled puff pastry. It costs ever so slightly more but it really does save you the trouble of rolling it to the correct thickness and then cutting out squares of the pastry. And it also reduces the amount you waste as you can very easily split your roll of pastry into squares with some calculations. And the leftover pastry you can create a mincemeat plait.

This is a great twist on the traditional mince pie but it is so simple and pleasurable to make. I love how the puff pastry compliments the flavours of the mincemeat and how you get some in each bite. A final drizzle of icing takes these pinwheels to the next level. What’s more, you can freeze them just as you would freeze normal mince pies. Whereas you would normally glaze the pastry with egg wash, I mix in some of the syrup with either a jar of stem ginger or glace cherries with some milk which adds another flavour dimension.

300g ready rolled puff pastry, or 300g homemade rough puff pastry

160g homemade mincemeat, or shopbought if you prefer

4 glace cherries, cut in half

2 tbsp milk mixed with 1 tsp stem ginger syrup or glace cherry syrup

50g icing sugar

1 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Line 2 baking trays with 2 sheets of baking parchment.

Unroll your puff pastry and using a ruler and a table knife, mark out 8 10cm x 10cm squares and using a sharp knife, cut out the 8 squares, placing 4 on each baking tray.

Cut about 3cm in from each of the corners of each square of puff pastry. Place a heaped tablespoon of the filling into the centre of each square. Bring together alternating triangles into the centre and press the ends of the pastry together with your finger. Top with half a glace cherry.

Brush over the milk, making sure all of the pastry is coated. Bake for 15 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and the bottom is not soggy. Allow to cool briefly on the tray before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Make the icing by mixing together the icing sugar and orange juice. It should be quite a thick icing that falls off the spoon. Place the icing into a piping bag and cutting off the smallest hole, drizzle over the icing liberally onto the pinwheels.