Baking a pie is like rearranging the furniture with two sticks and a bowling ball. For me it is, anyway. I start out precisely enough, but then I just throw the whole thing into a pie plate, press the dough down really hard, stick it in the oven, and hope for the best. Usually, I have to clean the kitchen with an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner later on as well. So, while I could have really gone for a mincemeat pie after a crisp fall walk with Nate and Alex, I just didn’t want to get the sticks and bowling ball out.
Instead, I was craving a certain store-bought ginger cookie that has an unmistakably sharp ginger flavor that I love. It would serve as the perfect base for store-bought mincemeat pie filling.
Mincemeat pie filling can have meat in it, but the one I bought did not have any—just delicious, dried fruit and spices. I have had the kind with meat in it before, and I did not notice the meat. I suppose this concoction is left over from medieval times when upper-class royals would heavily sugar and jelly their meats and fish because that’s just how they rolled. Literally. They rolled pie crust over lots of things. And, who wouldn’t enjoy a meat pie? But salmon, heavily doused in sugar and rolled under a piecrust, I think, would give me visions of sugar plums that wouldn’t dance in my head. They would rage and spit fire.
To avoid raging meat pies, I just placed the ginger snaps on a plate and spread a thin layer of mincemeat pie filling on top, and all was well in the kingdom.
I must mention something very important, though: the ginger snaps I love are, well, very crunchy and hard. They are made in factories and thick with flour that coats the entire mouth, and why this makes them a bit spendy, I don’t know. However, most store-bought ginger snaps really water down that ginger taste, and this variety just doesn’t hold back at all—it slaps you in the teeth with crunch and spice. Then, you get that mincemeat on it—and well, I just found my new favorite sweet fall snack.
Nate and Alex were with me in the store when I bought these things, and they looked puzzled. How would spreading mincemeat pie filling onto a very unassuming ginger snap cookie take the chill out of the air and satisfy weary bones after a hike?
They were pleasantly surprised. Nate, I think, helped himself to quite a few rounds of ginger snapping.
And, we didn’t use too much of the mincemeat pie filling, so if I ever watch professional bowling and get inspired to make a pie, I’ll have just enough to roll with it.
Your turn: What’s your favorite store-bought snack splurge?
Fixin' Leaks and Leeks 
The Raging Sugar Plums would be a good name for a band. They could play punk versions of Christmas carols. Blitzkrieg Jingle Bells, etc.
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Love that name for a band!
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Snowballs come to mind.
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Snowballs are classic!
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😀
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My M buys phyllo pastry, coats it in mincemeat, then rolls it into cigar shapes and bakes it. It comes out so crunchy and you can control the amount of mincemeat to taste. Very easy but quite impressive on a dessert platter. 🙂
No raging visions, please. Although a sweet/salmon pie might do that! Shudder.
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Phyllo dough is amazing–and that dessert sounds wonderful!
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I love ginger nut biscuits which are hard and crispy.
My favourite store-bought ones are part of a well-known brand in Australia; however, the factories around the country make them differently. In Brisbane, where I grew up, the ginger nut biscuits were hard and crispy, while in Darwin, where I lived for 12 years, the biscuits came from Adelaide and the biscuits were limp and weak, and the ginger flavour was mild, bordering on tasteless.
In Canberra, the biscuits are firm but not hard like the ones I want.
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Wow! There are so many varieties! I like chewier versions of some cookies–but not ginger. I like the crunchy texture and sharp flavor together.
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I love ginger and I can happily eat candied ginger all day long. Today I’m baking butter tarts ( if Kate and her boyfriend have left me any brown sugar after the cinnamon roll festival last night!)
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Butter tarts sound lovely!!!
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I found these great gf tart shells and made them today to everyone’s delight!
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Well, it’s not as exciting as those mincemeat ginger snaps–I love ginger, and I gotta try these. My “splurge” is mixing sour cream, dill, and a teensy bit of salt…homemade chip dip! (Something I’ve made since my days of being a latchkey kid! Ha!)
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That dip sounds delicious!
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Ha, thanks!
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I want to try these mincemeat snaps, I never tasted meat and ginger together
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It’s really good. The mincemeat I bought didn’t have any meat in it–and I couldn’t tell any difference. The version with meat and without tastes the same.
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Sorry for my poor English, I didn’t get it was wincemeat without meat. I’m goingo to read your post more carefully 🙂
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No–your English is fantastic 🙂 No worries!! Thank you so much for visiting–and your comments are always thoughtful and welcome–cheers!
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Oh thank you! 🙂
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I love the kind of gingersnaps you’re describing. Mincemeat, on the other hand, I guess I might’ve had it once. My sister made it, but I’m not sure she knew what she was doing. I’ve never ventured near one again. Meat pies, on the other hand, I love and make regularly – but without sugar!
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I’ve never ventured to make mincemeat myself. I’ve only bought it in a jar, already prepared, which is pretty good. I’m not sure it would come out very well if I made it myself. Thanks for stopping by!
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I so enjoy reading your blog – keep up the good work
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Thanks so much!
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