Schnecken

Ingredients

  • 1/2 quantity of chilled danish pastry dough
  • 100g homemade mincemeat
  • 1/2 Granny Smith apple grated or chopped up small
  • 1 tsp mixed spice
  • slivered almonds
  • maple syrup, golden syrup or brown sugar

Method

  1. This makes six big, or 8 or 9 small schnecken, so get out an appropriate muffin tin and put a teaspoon of your preferred sweatener in the bottom of each well you will be using. Then sprinkle a teaspoon of slivered almonds into each.
  2. Roll out the dough to a rectangle about 12" by 6" or the best you can manage
  3. Sprinkle the mixed spice over the dough and then spread the mincemeat and apple over it, leaving a margin along one long edge.
  4. Using a sharp knife divide the roll into the required number of schnecken and carefully lift into the prepared tins standing them cut side down.
  5. Leave to rise for about 30 mins, or overnight in the fridge
  6. Heat oven to 350deg F
  7. Cook for about 15 minutes until they are a good golden brown color.
  8. Now for the difficult bit. They have to be inverted onto a cooling rack. Take a baking tray and lay a sheet of waxed paper on top. Holding them together place on top of the schnecken tin, wax paper closest to the pastries. Wearing oven gloves grasp all three together and invert so the schecken are now on the waxed paper. Slide this off the baking sheet onto a cooling rack. Go back to the muffin tin and rescue an stray almonds and put them back on the schecken.

This is a very soft sticky dough, so have everything ready before you take it out of the fridge and work quickly

This recipe is based on the Schnecken recipe in "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigela Lawson.