Who else is getting in the festive mood? We have covered our tree in a sea of beads and baubles and now spend our evenings writing Christmas cards in front of the twinkly Christmas tree lights tucking into our advent calendar chocolates.

Now I love mincemeat, the juicy fruit and the spicy flavours. I have unashamedly been eating mince pies since November when they arrived in the shops. [I should give a little shout out to Asda for making their standard mince pies vegan – no hunting around in free from aisles!] And of course I bought the worlds biggest jar of mincemeat and have made a few mince pies myself too – shortcrust pastry is really easy to veganise by just replacing the butter with margarine.

But sometimes you need to mix it up, so this is a recipe for an alternative “mince pie”. Imagine the flapjack and the mince pie got a little drunk at the Christmas party and had a little too much fun – 9 months later this would be their festive baked goods love child. Perfect for providing mince pie lovers with something novel and possibly convincing a few mince pie haters over to the dark side.

These are great for kids too, it’s really easy cookie mixture to make. Plus you get the fun of shaping the cookies and pushing a “thumbprint” hole in the cookie before filling them with mincemeat.

So excuse me while I pop and write some more Christmas cards whilst demolishing a few mincemeat cookies. What are your favourite Christmas treats? Let me know in the comments below!