Can you be like Alton Brown and explain why? It is it a type of dough you’re not supposed to work with very much, and thus mixing it well enough to combine it hurts it?
The dough has layers of butter in it that forms flaky layers when baked.If you’ve ever heard people talking about a dough being well laminated, that’s what they’re referring to. Just mushing the scraps together and rolling it out again ruins the layers and it doesn’t rise as much or get as flaky.
If it’s necessary to reuse the scraps, lay them all on top of each other in a sort of stack so that when you roll it out, you preserve as much of the layers as possible.
Reworking the dough also gets the gluten fired up, which can make it tough. It helps to refrigerate it for awhile after re-rolling to settle things down and re-chill the butter.
I made some pretty excellent mince pies this year using Paul Hollywood’s recipe. I used a jar of Robertson’s doctored up with orange zest, candied peel, a handful of currants, and a splash of sherry. I even made a few with caramel custard filling, as MaxTheVool isn’t fond of fruit desserts.
There’s still half a jar of mince left. I might have to make a second batch.
Off topic but mince is exactly what? I just googled this yesterday as mincemeat and came up with recipes containing raisins, currants, apple and lots of spices. Does that sound correct? And is this product available pre made?
Yup. I *think *in bygone eras it included some meatscraps or suet or such. Nowadays it’s spiced raisins, apples, etc.
Here’s a national brand at Publix: Product Details | Publix Super Markets
It’s common in the baking aisle during the holiday season. Maybe not easy to find at other times of the year except in a very wide ranging grocery store.
Yes, my jar alluded to above is Robertson’s brand, made by Smuckers in the US. I got it at the local Safeway here in the SF Bay Area. I also added a bit more spice - cinnamon, nutmeg and ground clove. No actual meat.
I did make a second batch today. They came out even better 
I took them to a friend’s for games and no American bugger would eat them 
Oh well, they came home with me
Mince pies or tarts were bog-standard American holiday fare when I was a kid. Nothing exotic about them at all. You’d always have a mince pie and a pumpkin pie.
Somehow over the last 40-ish years mince went out and pecan or apple came in as the other standard US holiday pie beside pumpkin.
There’s mince and there’s mincemeat. The latter obviously contains meat, and the former doesn’t; this is the recipe I used and it was excellent. Whatever is left over can be frozen until next Christmas.