Friday, November 18, 2011

Christmas sweet wontons


I love Christmas mince pies! It almost an addiction, I'm always on the search for a good one - (Pandoro's Italian Bakeries, have the best one, in my opinion) and I eat them in a most peculiar way. I love them frozen! The pastry goes nice and hard and crunchy, whilst the fruit mince remains sticky (I suspect due to the alcohol content?). And I eat them, the same way each time, biting around the edges of the crust, taking the top off and eating it, before getting stuck into the sticky centre.

I've never had any inclination to make them, sometimes the process, especially a long one, can ruin my appetite - and I doubt I would have the patience to get through to the end. But I wanted to be creative and try out a new twist on my all time Christmas favourite. I'm also aware, at this time of year, that everybody seems time-poor! So this post is intended to be easy and all about the assembly.

Everything can be bought from your local supermarket (wonton wrappers from your local asian supermarket). However I did make the sauce from Boysenberry and Rhubarb Jam that I had made a little while ago but you could use store bought jam also. But the jam sauce is optional, they were delicious just as is.

What shape? I couldn't decide which shape worked best so I tried them all out - Triangles turned out the best, the stars weren't as successful - the fruit mince oozed out of the star shape. To make the stars work, I needed a bigger star cutter.

I love how Christmas and New Year gets everybody thinking about resolutions and new challenges for the coming year, so I thought it would be a nice touch to have some paper fortunes scattered around the plate.

I used brown parchment paper, and wrote wishes on them - I'm not a crafty person, so everything needed to be super easy. But you could go all Martha Stewart with this idea, using crinkle cut snips to cut the paper edges or cut the fortunes into Christmas shapes.

For the next five weeks, Vanessa and I are going to bring you all sorts of Christmas ideas - all simple and easy to make or assemble, and I promise nothing will be frozen! I'll keep that quirk to myself. Enjoy, Ingrid


Christmas fruit mince wontons
Makes 24
What you need
24 wonton wrappers (bought from your local asian supermarket)
200g Fruit mince (store-bought or homemade)
50g melted butter
icing sugar (to dust)

How to make
Preheat the oven to 180C and line a tray with baking paper.

Have a bit of fun and try out different shapes by laying out each rectangle of wonton wrapper, place a teaspoon of fruit mince, and see what shapes work out for you. An easy place to start is folding the wonton wrapper diagonally into a triangle, brush edges with melted butter and fold edges over pressing to seal in the fruit mince. Then brush the entire wonton with melted butter. Bake in oven for around 10mins or until golden and crunchy. Dust over with icing sugar to serve. 

Jam sauce (optional)
1/2 jar of Store bought or homemade jam (any type)
water


How to make
Put the jam in a saucepan, add a tablespoon of water and simmer adding water until it becomes a sauce consistency.

13 comments:

  1. How cute! I was just thinking how superior your craft skills were when you admitted you weren't so maybe there's a chance for me!

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  2. What a fabulous idea, I really must start my Christmas goodies too. It's so cold and windy today I may get that nougat done I have been procrastinating on. Love the pics with the red background.

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  3. Super cute, +1 from me :-). And I like the messages OUTSIDE the cookies, so I could choose my own fortune!!!

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  4. I agree Ingy (Ingrid) actually you are quite crafty! They must have tasted great considering Jim ate them all!!!

    Pressure for me now - was thinking almond brittle and Xmas fudge all wrapped up ready for giving... (unless I eat it all)
    Vanessa

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  5. I should have written a fortune FREE TIME!!! that's what I wish for most next year - more time to be creative, with food styling and photography and sharing great food with friends

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  6. What a great idea, I love anything that is fast and easy these days, will give them a try, love the photos too all very Xmasy.

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  7. They look great - what a cool idea! Love your styling and photography :)

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  8. I love the idea of using wonton wrappers in this way. Very cool. And while I've never tried it, I can totally picture frozen mince pies being delicious. But then I like cold spaghetti, so who knows...

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  9. Goodness they make me want to eat mincemeat....not a huge fan but I think these little morsels could convert me :)

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  10. Your recipe makes my mouth water. I am going to print your recipe and give it a try for Christmas.

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  11. Oh what a beautiful and stunning way to grace your plate and fab inspiring idea for Christmas. Thank you for inspiring and sharing!

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  12. I can't believe I said in this post that in my next post "I promise nothing will be frozen!" and I'm thinking about making Christmas flavoured ice cubes!!!

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  13. Next Xmas post - Fudge - on its way very soon...
    Been a busy time of the year with school wrapping up, reports and tidying loose ends
    Vanessa

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