I call this a mince pie strudel creature because it didn’t quite come out looking like the pretty strudel I was aiming for – it looks like some kind of dinosaur fetus!  Never mind – it tastes great!

My Godson and his big brother were supposed to be coming over for the day but a tummy bug and an ear infection put pay to our plans so I had a defrosted pack of filo pastry going begging plus a bunch of other ingredients to play with.  I also had to make some kind of mince pie for my father – he does this thing every Christmas where he builds a Christmas float and then pulls it round the local town with a Santa and a bunch of his Rotary friends collecting for charity and it gets COLD!  So I try to make him things to snack on whilst he’s doing it.  This is how this recipe started – not actually sure it has worked out as something you could snack on as it’s a bit of a messy eat.  It is though rather good.

I just sort of threw it together so the measurements of the ingredients are a guesstimate as I only decided to share it once I’d made it and started eating!

Ingredients

1 pack of filo pastry (mine started as frozen but thawed)

1 jar of Robinsons mincemeat

3 handfuls of scrunched up slithered almonds

75g melted butter

3 tablespoons golden breadcrumbs

3 tablespoons soft dark brown sugar

grated rind of one orange

4 tablespoons icing sugar

40g cream cheese

egg wash

tablespoon sparkly sugar

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C fan and line a large baking tray with foil backed baking parchment
• Melt the butter
• Lay one sheet of filo on the baking parchment and paint with the melted butter
• Crumble on handful of almonds over the pastry and sprinkle one tablespoon of breadcrumbs over
• Lay over the next sheet of filo, paint with butter and sprinkle over one tablespoon of the sugar
• Repeat this with another couple of layers finishing with your seventh sheet of filo onto which just paint the remaining butter
• Along one edge of the filo spoon out the mincemeat into a rough sausage shape, leaving about an inch and a half at each end
• Mix together the cream cheese and the icing sugar
• Spread that on top of the mincemeat
• sprinkle over the grated orange zest
• Roll up into a large sausage, tucking the ends under and forming into a crescent shape so it fits onto your tin
• Paint with egg wash and sprinkle over the glittery sugar
• Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown and crisp
• Serve with squirty cream!