Rhubarb and Stem Ginger Pie

I never make pies. In total I’ve only made 6 pies on here in nearly 6 years of blogging – terrible odds considering I normally love anything involving pastry. The last full size pie I made on here was way back in 2011 – the classic apple pie. I’m not sure why I’ve been avoiding them but it was clearly time to change. This may be cheating a little, as it is only a single crust, but it was so delicious I don’t think anyone was complaining. Rhubarb is one of my favourite fruits, and rhubarb and ginger are a classic combination so I knew this would be good. Opinions were divided in my house over the stem ginger in the pastry. I liked the spice it added to the pie, but the texture was maybe a bit strange, so to compromise you could easily just stick with ground ginger to provide a bit of heat. With a splash of crème anglaise (always practicing for school) I was sold and the pie did not last very long in my house. It was also easily adaptable – I had slightly less rhubarb and so made a smaller pie and used the spare pastry to make little ginger biscuits to keep us going while the pie baked. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Mini Apple Pies

Top tip: deciding to make 12 mini apple pies instead of one big one at the last minute is not the best idea. These were for my friends who were arriving for lunch at 1pm and my last minute change meant that at 12:55 I still hadn’t started on the main course…But I think these were worth it! And hey, my friends didn’t mind the slight delay. Mini pies make serving up a doddle – they are the perfect size so that they are still generous and filling and you don’t feel like you’re losing out by not getting a big slice! I loved these piping hot with plenty of custard, but they are equally good cold the next few days so they would be such a treat in a lunch box. I simply used this BBC recipe and rolled out the pastry to make 12 mini pies and lids (cut using my biggest cookie cutter) and baked them in a silicone muffin tray for around 25 minutes. I think you could probably get one or two more out of the mixture – I was in a rush so my pastry was a bit thick. It’s also important to fill the pies really high – the apples shrink during baking so you don’t want to end up with a sad empty gap in between the filling and pastry lid. The filling has a good dose of cinnamon and sugar so the apples taste almost caramelised, when in reality the filling is super simple – just raw apple slices stirred together with sugar, spice and flour. These make the perfect after dinner treat as the evenings get darker and colder – enjoy!

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Apple Pie

Now that it’s autumn and winter weather, it’s time to start making proper puddings. Biscuits and cupcakes are fabulous, but on a dark winter evening a hot pudding is just the thing. Warming dishes like steamed sponges, crumbles, self-saucing puddings, chocolate fondants and anything that can be served with custard really come in to their own. It’s the season of comfort food! For me pies are a perfect winter dish because, whilst they are tasty made with summer fruits, I think the classic Autumn double crust apple pie is very hard to beat.This bake was perfect to help me get through the apple overload, using 10 (they’re are quite small). I made this after having some baking block and not really knowing what to make – in times like this it’s always best to return to simple favourites. Also with a classic dish I wanted to use a reliable recipe so I turned to the ever trustworthy Mary Berry. The recipe comes from her book How to Cook which we’ve had for a while but I've shamefully only used once before for tomato soup! The recipe had complete step-by-step pictures and I only altered the recipe slightly by adding a tablespoon of cinnamon to the apples (because apples and cinnamon is always a winning flavour combination) and using butter instead of margarine for the pastry.I was a little wary as the pastry doesn’t have any sugar in, but when the pie is served you don’t notice – the apple filling and obligatory serving accompaniment of custard makes it sweet enough. The pastry was crisp, the apples were soft with just enough cinnamon spice and overall the pie was very welcomed on a cold and drizzly evening. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Mini Pork Pies

I just don't get the jelly in pork pies.

The pork sausagemeat: obviously, yes, delicious. The pastry: thick, crunchy, preferably in generous amounts.The hard boiled egg: technically we're talking a Gala pie now but still very much acceptable and welcomed. The jelly? No. Not a fan. A strange added layer squeezed between the pork and pastry which I find slimy and tasteless and annoyingly time consuming to remove. Hence why I got rather excited when I saw Lorraine Pascale’s Pork Pies with Cider recipe – due to its total lack of jelly.I’m sure that to a lot of people a jelly free pork pie seems like sacrilege (and a jelly-free pork pie with a quails egg in the middle even more so) but stick with it. These are delicious. I made these with my friend E. (my fellow foodie friend and a savoury cooking genius) on a bake day. We had an immense day and have another day planned – involving duck dumplings! We didn’t have any cider for the pork pies so we used apple juice which worked very well as you could taste the sweetness this brought and made the meat mixture extra juicy. These were mini pies, so they were a bit time consuming to make, but really enjoyable and strangely relaxing! It was our first time making hot water pastry and although we found the bright white lard a bit strange, the pastry was very easy to work with. I’d also never used or even tried a quails egg before – they are so adorable!The end results were delicious. Whilst the recipe states it makes 8 pies, we ended up with 12 – a happy bonus. They would be perfect for a picnic or a delicious summer lunch with salad. The pies got our imaginations going and we are looking forward to making more variations on pork pies – spiced ones, herby ones, a large one in a loaf tin with a whole line of full eggs. So, maybe I just haven't tried a good enough jelly-included-pork pie yet. Perhaps it is a taste that grows with age. Until then, I'm more than happy eating these little guys instead. Enjoy!

Chicken Pie Terrine

Most people who know me, and anyone who reads this blog, will have realised by now that I’m not much of a savoury cook. My Mum can make gorgeous dinners: roasts, homemade curries, pastas, risotto, soup, pies – everything. Me, I tend to stick to “dessert duty”. In fact of all 62 posts so far on this blog (this being the 63rd), only two could be properly classified savoury. And both still involved baking. Well, things look set to change around here.
My heart is always going to lie with all things sweet. Lemon tart is always going to grab me more than smoked salmon. Yet, as I have been told many a time, a career in food is going to be much harder if all I can make are cupcakes and brownies. Plus, as delicious as sweet treats are, and as enjoyable as the family finds them, its not fabulous for the waistline. So, a new Father-implemented rule has entered the kitchen: for every sweet thing I bake, a savoury thing must follow. A hard task for me personally, but one that must be followed if my new To Bake list is ever to be accomplished. Starting, with this scrumptious chicken pie/terrine. 
This pie comes from the little cookery book compiled by my old Primary School a couple of years ago. The original recipe was from a Delia Smith book, but this version is altered a little. Essentially, you have a short crust pastry bowl, with a layer of sausage-meat (with spring onions, parsley and lemon), layer of chicken&nutmeg, more sausage-meat, the rest of the chicken, topped with sausage-meat and a pastry lid. The layers are what make me call it a pie/terrine as it is not quite the traditional white-sauce chicken pie. The pie took me quite a while to get together, partly I think as it was my first time properly using savoury ingredients alone. For a more seasoned cook, I’m sure this would be a breeze. There were plenty of moments throughout the preparation where I yearned for a sprinkling of sugar, spoonful of jam or handful of chocolate but I did it. And to be quite honest, I was mighty proud when my pie came out the oven, ready to be served for dinner. With no back up!
This pie was delicious! The sausage-meat was juicy and fragrant, the chicken was moist and fresh-tasting, and the pastry kept everything sturdily happy. The layers turned out prettily, and my favourite flavour was the juice and zest of a whole lemon in there – keeping the pie bright and light! If I were to make this again, I think I would make it less complicated by doing it how Delia does: just having three layers: two sausage-meat and one chicken in the middle. Also, the adapted recipe I was using didnt have enough pastry for a lid, so I used some puff pastry. Here is the link to the Delia recipe, with my shortcrust pastry amounts below.  Try it, its a lovely savoury thing to serve up. Now… where’s that cookie recipe…
Chicken Pie/Terrine Pastry:
100g butter
225g plain flour, sifted
Cold water to mix (about 4tbsp)
Beaten egg to glaze

1. Make the pastry by rubbing the butter into the sifted flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add just enough water to make a dough, place in cling film and chill for 30minutes in the fridge. Use this pastry to line a 20cm deep pie dish.

Crunchy Lemon Pie?

There are so many different places to get great ideas and recipes from today. Previous generations may have had family recipes and a few cookbooks. Then came the rise of the celebrity chef – and Nigella, Jamie, Gordon et al gave us hundreds of new recipes promising to make us look like culinary gods/goddesses. Then they were TV programmes – who could resist some sumptuous fish recipe after it was shown to them by Rick Stein as he sailed through various parts of Europe/the Mediterranean cooking and eating all sots of delicacies.

Now we also have a huge variety of magazines and “Food Sections” in the papers ever month or week – providing us with more inspiration. And so the Saturday Times Weekend Section recently combined two recipe sources: by showing a readers family recipe in the food-section each week – therefore family secrets available for the nation (like blogs..?). And hence where this weeks recipe was from!

It was described, in the paper, as Crunchy Lemon Pie. Really, its more a refrigerated lemon cheesecake: but HEY the most important aspect is it was delicious! Absolutely delicious! Thick and creamy lemon filling, combined with the sweet crunch of the gingernut crust – aah. Its perfect for the hot weather we have been having recently, and the summer season altogether, as you don’t need an oven and its lovely and refreshing. And all so easy! This should definitely be a new family favourite.

You can see just how thick and luscious it was from this photo! Some notes: although the recipe suggests 7tbsps of lemon juice and 3 lemon zests, I think I ended up using around 5 lemons? Alright they were rather small – but this dessert is best when the filling has a strong flavour and kick to it – rather than being just bland. As long as we (my Mummy and I) tasted as we went along it was good – and trust me, it will be hard NOT to taste as you go!

Simple, classy, flavourful, wow-factor: why are you still reading? Go make this brilliant summer dessert! Find the recipe here.

Blackberry and Apple Mania!

If you love blackberries (or apples...) but can’t get any near you then look away because this post holds 5 yummy blackberry or apple (or both) baked puddings! After last Fridays successful blackberry gathering down by the Thames, we took our supply up to Suffolk where we picked more! We also gathered the glut of apples on our huge apple tree in the garden and then made these.....

First – blackberry and apple compote. Peel, core and chop your apples, add loads of blackberries, put on the heat and wait. You end up with delicious deep purple compote which I like best with Greek yogurt and a little bit of brown sugar for breakfast.



Next – Blackberry and apple crumble! Crumble is the first recipe I ever learnt to make and it is very simple. I often make it on holiday because all you really need is a bowl, caster sugar, butter and flour. I love rubbing it all together and thinking “this is never going to come together” and then in just a few minutes ending up with fine breadcrumbs. I like using slightly soft butter because it is easier and quicker to rub, but if I am making it at home I do it in the Magimix.

Sometimes I use tinned peaches or apricots for the filling, and once tinned pineapple, but my all time favourite is strawberry and rhubarb crumble! In Spain we used plums and sometimes we add oats or ground almonds to the crumble mix but mainly just leave it simple. This one was very good!

Thirdly – heaped blackberry and apple pie. One day we went to Ipswich and the Lakeland store there (I’m a bit sad - I loved it there and was choosing things to buy when I grow up!) . When we were there we bought (among other things!) a pie dish. As soon as I got home I put it to use making this delicious yummy pie. I liked the pie dish because it had a smaller dish with holes in that fitted snugly inside and was for baking things “blind” instead of using baking beans etc. I pressed down the pastry, put the small hole dish on top, baked for 10 minutes and it came out great! Then I piled in the apples and blackberries and covered with the remaining pastry. My sister carved in some stars and leaves on the pastry, we cooked it for about 20 minutes and it came out delicious! I was very proud because it was my first time making pastry and my first pie :)

Before...

And after!

Fourthly, (?) the simplest pudding – baked apples! Whilst at Lakeland we also bought these nifty baked apple cookers.

They came with a corer and we just cored the apples, secured them in the cooker, topped with mixed fruit, butter and sugar, covered with the lid and microwaved for a few minutes!

Fifth and finally, blackberry muffins. I will post more about these tomorrow but they are VERY good (I have made three batches in a week and there are only three members of my family eating them!). I really liked the recipe (from BBC Good Food Magazine) and know I shall make these again in the future. Now, however, I am all blackberried out and have some savoury recipes in the pipeline! Savoury - eek!!!