A vicious circle of Christmas treats

For the Christmas season we again have both mince pies^* and clotted cream^† in stock. Mince pies often have an air gap in between the mincemeat filling and the pastry lid: for extra tastiness one can lever the lid up with a butterknife, fill the gap with clotted cream, then stick the lid back down onto the cream. This practice does however enable two fault conditions:

• We ran out of mince pies but still have clotted cream. Solution: buy more mince pies.


• We ran out of clotted cream but still have mince pies: Solution: buy more clotted cream.

At least the latter permits a short break in the cream-mince-pie consumption as the pies are not terribly perishable.

^*the spiced fruit kind, not the Scottish savory meat pies

^†a cream so thick that it is made mostly of fat