What fat do you use for your Christmas pastry?

I use all butter, but I'm not the world's greatest pastry maker!

I use all unsalted butter .

Butter here too. Same as my Mum did .

Mary Berry uses all butter
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mincemeat_and_orange_21941
It’s annoying about the palm oil I agree. Means soft margarine for all in one Victoria sponge also off the menu.?

Oh golly! Is there no vegetable marg without palm oil? Just looked and seen my Bertolli has some.

Going to plump for butter for Xmas mince pies.

Thanks all.

I've always used Stork or the supermarket's own equivalent. Vegetarian friends often ask if I use lard - 'No, never!'

I'm sometimes complimented on my pastry, but then I add a little Orkney beremeal to the mix and this adds flavour.

Hadn't realised there was palm oil in the marg. Might have to reconsider...

I don't make my own mince pies and if I make Mr R's fav meat pie I buy the pastry more

Lard and marge, if it's for sweet stuff I add a little bit of icing sugar.

I use Stork which I find very easy to use as it's fairly soft and pliable to work with.

cheapest lard and marge available. I get asked every year to do the pastry, so I must be doing something right :-)

Lard and butter 50:50 and I never make sweet pastry - the filling is the sweetener for me. Vegetarians can make/bring their own as vegans do.

The only fat I use is the fat I burn off going to the local bakery to buy my mince pies! I tried making my own once but they were rock hard - I didn't bother again!

I use half lard, half butter for my rough puff pastry. Can still hear my old domestic science teacher saying “ Lard for shortness, margarine for colour”.
Bit fussier now so butter has replaced the margarine.
Sorry Miss G!

I was just thinking of domestic science lessons with half lard and half butter/margarine.

I have only made decent pastry once and I am sure it involved an egg yolk. Gave up trying to repeat the experience and went back to ready made. Not as good but acceptable.

My SM and MIL made great pastry but very different to each others.

Shortcrust- butter. I use this for mince pies because that’s what my mum did.
Flaky- a mixture of lard and butter.

I’ve started making flaky again because of the palm oil. I’d forgotten how much I liked the process.

Olive oil pastry is delicious and more pliable than traditional trex/butter pastry.
There are a number of recipes on line.
I always used trex/butter with perfect results.

The nicest mince pies I ever tasted were made by a friend who sadly died a few years ago.
She always used half and half butter and lard and her pastry was renowned.

I've used Trex and butter but the palm oil has put me off. I notice that there doesn't seem to be any ready-made pastry without palm oil in it. Tesco used to do one with all Normandy butter.

I tried all butter but they haven't been great and this year I've bought some lard, so I may try three quarters butter to a quarter lard.
If I get around tuit.
Tomorrow

If you want to avoid palm oil you will need to empty out most of the stuff in your cupboards because it's in 50% of supermarket goods. Not just food but cosmetics and cleaning products too. You can buy products containing responsibly sourced palm oil (RSPO). I am not a domestic goddess so get my mince pies with RSPO from M&S.
Beware! PO masquerades under other names too.

Palm Oil is allowed to hide under the label 'vegetable oil' which is so wrong. If a manufacturer uses rapeseed, olive, sunflower, etc- they will label it as such. So beware, if the label says 'vegetable oil' it is 'palm' ...

Glad I live in a country where they are not allowed to do that, by Law. Palm oil has to be labelled as such, and so do other oils.

Most ready made pastry is made with palm oil - In France, I can buy butter only pastry, be it short crust or puff.

I don't bake for Christmas. I normally use butter and any margarine that doesn't have animal fat.

I did manage to buy all butter puff pastry but couldn't find shortcrust without palm oil.

For mince pies, Jocelyn Dimbleby’s orange pastry wins plaudits all round. I use 8 oz unsalted butter, 4 oz lard to 10 oz of plain flour and the juice and zest of a large orange. Make the pastry, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for an hour, and then roll out. Gives me 40 mince pies (with star tops) and never fails.

Use with homemade mincemeat (very easy to make, takes about half an hour and keeps happily for a year or more). So far this season I have made 80 mince pies and will probably need to do another 80 for family and local events. It’s the only comestible at which I excel!

Thanks for that, GrannySomerset