Chop up the fat into small cubes and add to a large bowl with the sifted flour.
Ensuring that you have cold, dry hands first, rub the fat and flour together using just the tips of your fingers until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Once you have a mix the texture of breadcrumbs, add the water.
Bring the mix together using a spatula or butter knife until you have a ball of dough. You may find it easier towards the end of this process to bring the ball of dough together with your hands. This is perfectly fine but try not to over handle the pastry, particularly if you have warm hands.
Place the ball of dough into a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for 30mins.
Grease cupcake tins with a little butter and preheat your oven to gas mark 4.
Once the dough has finished resting, roll out onto a lightly floured surface to roughly 0.5cm thick.
Using a circular cookie cutter roughly the same size as the cupcake tin you wish to fill, cut out the bases of your mince pies. You should be able to get roughly 18-24.
Push these gently into the cupcake tins and then fill with a table spoon of mincemeat.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-20mins or until the mix is bubbling and the edges of the pastry are crisp and golden brown.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before removing from the tin and placing on a wire rack.
While they are cooling, roll out the marzipan (again to roughly 0.5cm thick) and cut out your lids. I like to use a star shaped cookie cutter or holly leaf cutter.
Place these on top of the mince pie.