Mini mincemeat puffs - a recipe for the control freak mum

Dolly's mini mincemeat puffs

When my children were babies I threw myself into being what one friend of mine calls a 'Playdough Mum'.  

I indeed made an abundance of playdough, and did lots of baking with them - at a time when they were too young to hold a spoon.

However, when they got old enough to start wanting to crack their own eggs into bowls, or measure out flour, or dollop mixture into cakes themselves, I found that our kitchen became a very tense environment indeed.

I have a friend who lets her kids go wild in the 'baking' stakes, and they make all sorts of interesting (inedible) concoctions and they completely trash the kitchen while they are at it.  I really really respect her for letting them do this in the name of letting them have fun and learn, because when I bake with my kids, it is in very controlled conditions.

So when the lovely people from the Great British Chefs website contacted me and asked if I fancied cooking a festive treat with my kids from their website, I chose the recipe I thought would create the least amount of mess.

And yesterday Dolly and I produced these delicious and extremely easy mini mincemeat puffs - a much nicer version (in my opinion) of the traditional mince pie.

It was the perfect recipe for us, because Dolly almost had total control (for a change) and she really felt she had produced something by herself without me breathing down her neck.  And the best bit was that she and Betty really enjoyed eating them, as did family and friends - they really were a winner!

The Great British Chefs website has loads of fabulous looking recipes for kids, and I am really looking forward to trying out some more.

Thank you to Great British Chefs for sponsoring this post - Dolly now thinks I'm a nicer mum...