Bacon and Egg Pie.

Would you like some pie? It's Bacon and Egg? Hop on over to Flavrbox; another place that accommodates my food-based waffling, where I will tell you all about it.

Easy Peasy Gooseberry Pie.

Don’t worry, I’m not going all autumnal like the rest of the web seems to be. Sometimes, you just need pie. You particularly just need pie when you buy gooseberries because you’re excited to see them on the shelf but don’t have enough to do preserving with them and aren’t reeeeeally sure how else you might eat the sour little chaps.

This is a brill pie for those new to pastry or those not new to pastry but who just can't be bothered with the faff of finesse, or maybe you love making pastry, it comes easy to you, but you’re just having one of those days that requires bishbashbosh sort of baking.

There’s no worrying about blind baking or shrinking or getting the right size tin. Just roll and scrunch and bake.

And this wonkyness adds charm and homemade lovelyness which will make people love it, and you for making it, even more than a fancy pants, jealous making perfect pie. So go on, make a pie. Bishbashbosh. With Love and Cake.

Free form Gooseberry Pie.

Adapted from my ol' mucker Delia and her Summer Collection.

A few notes:

• You can either make the pastry by hand or whizz everything together in a food processor...I swing between one method and the other. This time though, getting the food processor felt like an effort too far so I did it old school style.
• This makes a fairly small pie, I halved Delia's recipe. It'll feed 2 hungry boys or, if you've eaten a nice big meal first will just about stretch to 4 dainty portions.
• You can mix it up and make the pie with any fruit really, just adjust the amount of sugar you sprinkle over it to taste, gooseberries are particularly sour, something like strawberries would need less. Cherries would be divine.
• I served mine with creme fraiche spiked with elderflower cordial.

Serves 2-4

You will need

1 lined baking sheet

For the pastry

90g plain flour

40g butter, cubed

1-ish tbsp cold water

For the rest

1 egg, separated

1 tsp semolina or polenta

250g gooseberries

1 tbsp caster sugar

1-2 tsp demerara sugar

• First for the pastry. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
• Add the water and start to bring everything together to form a dough. You may need a teensy bit more water but only add it a bit at a time...wet is NOT best here.
• Form the pastry into a disc, wrap in clingfilm or pop in a food bag and rest in the fridge for half an hour.
• When it's nice and chilled...you're ready to make a pie.
• Get the oven on to 200°c.
• Now roll out your pastry, on a lightly floured surface, to about the size of a large dinner plate.
• Transfer this to your lined baking sheet. It doesn't matter if the pastry disc is a bit too big at this point, you're about to fold it up a bit.
• Brush the pastry all over with the egg yolk and sprinkle over the semolina. This will stop you getting a soggy bottom.
• Pile your fruit into the centre of the pastry disc, leaving a border of 5-10cm.
• Sprinkle the caster sugar over the fruit.
• Now fold the edges of the pastry in towards the centre, creating a rather ramshackle looking edge to your pie. Ramshackle is good here.
• Brush the outside of the pie with egg white and sprinkle all over with lots of crunchy demerara sugar.
• Get the pie in the oven and bake for 35 minutes, at which point it should be golden and crispy round the edges.
• Serve with ice cream, thick double cream or cool creme fraiche. Just pie.

Bramble Brownie Pie.

So the other day you said I didn't ever make kitchen based errors. Well I am here to present you evidence to the contrary. For starters you just have to speak to Dad and I'm sure he'll regale you with tales of our kitchen fall outs. His particular favourite incident involves a bowl of butter and sugar whisking its way onto the floor, spreading itself over quite a distance- there are photos. Of course he is wrong and I am a pleasure to cook along side.

Now see here, yep up there. That is a recent mistake- wowzas it could have been a disaster and almost ended in tears and tantrums but it turned out to be one of those Elvis Costello mistakes; a brilliant one. You see I have a recipe for Bramble Brownies, which is a genius idea because the freshness of the berries really pings next to the richness of the choccychocolateness.

The problem is that every time I follow the recipe the brownies emerge from the oven looking perfect, a crackled top yielding to a hint of squidge underneath. But the cutting of the brownies has always revealed uncooked leaky mixture, which IS oozy and absolutely delish but not really presentable or what can be really labelled a success. So another blackberry season arrives and, another year wiser, out of the oven I pull perfect looking Bramble Brownies. But...here's what happens...I cut, goooooooe, I set aside to deal with later, I SOMEhow flip, upside down onto hob, splat. 

Well as you can imagine I skipped a few heart beats but aaccctually it wasn't as tear inducing as it could have been. The 'mistake' picture up top was actually taken after the flipping incident so you can see that things were really quite salvageable. And how to salvage uncooked, thrown around brownie? Bake again in a pastry case of course. And it is wonderful and totally worth the numerous mistake that led to its discovery. You see, a brilliant mistake. With Love and Cake.

Bramble Brownie Pie

A few notes:

• Of course you could go ahead and just make the brownies without the pastry case and assume that it's just me being a twit. I'd turn the oven down 20ish° and give an extra 15 minutes to bake.
• If everything does end up too runny for your liking, serve in a bowl with pouring cream or ice cream and call is chocolate pudding. Done.
• You don't have to use the blackberries if you don't have any or can't be bothered to go and pick them, just leave them out.
• If you prefer a sweeter brownie you could substitute some of the dark chocolate for milk chocolate, but it's best to keep at least half of the chocolate that you melt dark, so you get that ultra chocolatey taste.
• This pastry is beautifully buttery and melt-in-the-mouthey thanks to the addition of ground almonds and a light hand. What that also means though is that it’s a bit of a bum to roll out because it is so short  and crumbly. What I tend to end up doing is rolling it out to the thickness I want, attempting to line the tin, and then patching up and patting in the leftovers into gaps and tears. So don’t be disheartened it will turn good in the end.

Makes an 18cm pie

You will need

An 18cm round cake tin or pie dish, greased

For the pastry

210g plain flour

50g caster sugar

50g ground almonds

125g butter

1 egg

For the brownie filling

3 eggs

175g caster sugar

175g dark chocolate

150g butter

100g plain flour

225g blackberries

100g chocolate chips or chopped chocolate of your choice

• So let’s get going. First things first make the pastry by popping all the dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse together. Then whiz in the butter followed by the egg and leave trundling around until it comes together to form a dough (you could also do this by rubbing in the butter with your finger tips then mixing in the egg by hand).
• Turn out the dough, pat into a disc and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.
• When it’s ready roll it out as best you can and line the tin (see note). Pop the tin in the fridge while you get on with the rest of the pie. Preheat the oven to 180°c.
• Now for the filling. Whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined and a bit more voluminous.
• Then melt the chocolate and butter together gently in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or in a microwave.
• Mix the chocolate mixture into the eggs and then fold in the flour, berries and chocolate.
• Pour the filling into the pastry case and bake for 30 minutes until the pastry is golden and the top of the brownie has a dark crust and doesn't wobble, just gives a little.
• Cool on a wire wrack in the tin for 10 minutes or so, then turn out if you can...though if it's easier feel free to serve out the tin.
• Serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream. Good luck.

Apple and Elderberry Pie with Elderflower Custard.

Hiiiii, thanks for stopping by. So eeeerm, it's summer again. Uh I love to be warm...I even love to be hot, eeeven the sticky, sweaty kind.

But despite all the sunshine, dry washing and sandals going on outside but I've been kitchen-based all day; whizzing and chopping and rolling and stirring and bringing together this beast of an autumn feast.

You see I can't get too attached to this weather. I was obsessively stalking it throughout June, July and August and really all it did was get my feet wet (yep, I have holes in my shoes). I have just about accepted the sun's passing for another year and got over the heartache, so I am not about to let it back in for it only to dash my tan hopes again. So I will ignore it and bake with the fruits of my autumn foraging- all be it in shorts, while getting ready to spend the night in a tent.

So here it is; harvest season in a pud, a pie and a crumble rolled into one. Heck, it seems I'm on a roll of rolling things into one doesn't it. I think it's basically because the crumble part of crumble is brill but the fruit it sits on top of tends to leave me wanting, as if I'm eating something unfinished. And when has pastry ever made anything worse....er never. So by all means make a crumble, but if you have a few extra moments, make some pastry, and if you have a few more, make some custard, elderflower custard if you're feeling extra fancy, and take what this autumn has to offer while summer pretends that it's still generous too. With Love and Cake.

Apple and Elderberry Pie with Elderflower Custard

A few notes:

• This pastry is beautifully buttery and melt-in-the-mouthey thanks to the addition of ground almonds and a light hand. What that also means though is that it’s a bit of a bum to roll out because it is so short  and crumbly. What I tend to end up doing is rolling it out to the thickness I want, attempting to line the tin, and then patching up and patting in the leftovers into gaps and tears. So don’t be disheartened it will turn good in the end.
• Don’t have elderberries hanging about in your kitchen (why?)? How about using blackberries instead or maybe a mixture of apples and pears, or just plain old apples...really whatever you fancy, though I wouldn’t suggest tuna.
• You don’t have to go to the bother of making your own custard if you don’t fancy it, though it is rather impressive if that’s your agenda, the pie would be scrumptious with cream, or clotted ooo or ice cream.

Makes an 18cm pie and enough custard to go with it

You will need

An 18cm round cake tin or pie dish, greased

For the pastry

210g plain flour

50g caster sugar

50g ground almonds

125g butter

1 egg

For the topping

60g oats

40g nuts- used hazelnuts and brazil nuts, chopped

30g pumpkin seeds

70g plain flour

75g soft brown sugar

125g butter, melted

For the filling

2 small or 1 medium cooking apples, peeled cored and roughly chopped

175g elderberries

2tsp corn flour

50g soft brown sugar

For the custard

350ml elderflower cordial

4tbsp double cream

4 egg yolks

3 tbsp caster sugar

2 tsp corn flour

• So let’s get going. First things first make the pastry by popping all the dry ingredients into a food processor and pulse together. Then whiz in the butter followed by the egg and leave trundling around until it comes together to form a dough (you could also do this by rubbing in the butter with your finger tips then mixing in the egg by hand).
• Turn out the dough, pat into a disc and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.
• When it’s ready roll it out as best you can and line the tin (see note). Pop the tin in the fridge while you get on with the rest of the pie. Preheat the oven to 180°c.
• Now it’s time to make the topping, by mixing the dry ingredients together in a bowl then stirring through the butter until you get a crumbly paste.
• For the filling mix the fruit together and tumble into the pastry lined tin set on a baking tray. Sprinkle over the corn flour and sugar and top with the oat-ey topping.
• Pop into the oven for 25 minutes until the topping is bronze and crisp and the pastry is golden.
• Meanwhile you can get on with the custard if you’d like. Heat the cordial and cream gently while you get the rest of the ingredients ready in a bowl and whisk together.
• When the cordial has just reached simmering point, trickle it over the egg mixture, whisking constantly.
• Pour everything back into the pan and heat gently, stirring all the time with a wooden spoon, until the custard has thickened. It will take long enough for you to get bored so make sure the radio is on and persevere until it coats the back of a spoon or has reached 85°c.
• Turn the pie out the tin, and serve a good slice with an healthy splosh of custard, and think that you won't be so sad summer when summer is officially over after all.

Beautiful on the Inside Cherry Almond Pies.

I've been meaning to tell you about these little lovelies for a while now. Well actually, I've been meaning to make some that are nice and photogenic and not crumbly round the edges and not a bit unruly looking.

What I keep doing you see, is ending up with some left over pastry and a few egg whites and improvising my way to a few of these- and by few I mean 5, or some other random number that my pastry just about stretches to. But after the second time this happened I thought, doesn't beauty lie within really? We all have 'crumbly round the edges' days when we have to face the world and rely on others loving us for our delicious marzipan-ey middle. Isn't your middle marzipan-ey? I'm pretty sure mine is.

So I will share these, in all their shabby chic yummyness, just as they are (a la Bridget Jones).

Now, those fresh, ruby round cherries you see here, are from Edinburgh Farmers Market, and are far too wonderful to do anything with other than eat, spit out the pit and hope that a bit of juice dribbles down your chin so that you can pretend you're sat under a cherry tree in the sun in 18th century Kent. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is, the cherries actually inside the pie are ones I just bought from a supermarket, frozen. I think frozen is a great way to buy fruit, it means it's fresh as a daisy until you decide, and it's cherry, or whatever, season all year round. If only. With Love and Cake.

Cherry Almond Pies

A few notes:

• Like I said, I use this recipe as a way to use up left over egg whites, but if you don't have any, don't separate an egg especially, just use one whole one.
• You could make one whole pie rather than several little ones if you'd prefer, just use a small round cake or pie pan and bake both the pastry and the whole pie for 10 or so minutes longer.
• This is the recipe I used after making the treacle tart I made last week, I just doubled the pastry recipe. But I'll write everything out again in case you're just going for these.
• You end up with some sweetened cherry juice left over, may I recommend using it in a breakfast of natural yogurt, banana and natural peanut butter, all layered up in a bowl. Yum.

Makes 6

You will need

a 6 hole muffin or cupcake pan, well greased and floured

For the pastry

110g plain flour

50g butter

1-2 tbsp cold water

For the filling

75g cherries

2 tbsp granulated sugar

50g butter, at room temp

50g caster sugar

1 egg white, beaten to a froth

a drop of almond extract

40g ground almonds

2 tbsp plain flour

• First lets get on with the pastry. Pop the flour in the processor and give it a pulse.
• Next whizz in the butter until it has a texture of fine breadcrumbs then, a tbsp at a time, whizz in the water until everything comes together and makes you a nice dough.
• Pat into a flat disc and let rest in the fridge in a bag or some clingfilm for 1/2 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 180°.
• Meanwhile you can get on with filling by bubbling the cherries and sugar with a splash of water in a small pan over a medium heat for around 5 minutes, until the sugar has dissolved and everything's got a bit syrupy.
• When the pastry is rested, roll it out to a thickness or 1/2 cm and use an appropriate sized cutter (or mug or glass) to cut circles that will cover the muffin hole and leave at least a 1cm border around the top.
• Pat each disc into its hole and bake for around 10 minutes, until just about to turn gold.
• Now in a bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.
• Whisk in the egg white and almond essence, then fold in the ground almonds and flour.
• Now for assembly. Divide the whole cherries between the pastry cases and add about a teaspoon of juice into each one.
• Top with the almond mixture and bake for 20 minutes until the top is nicely golden brown.
• Try and take them out of the tin as soon as poss, before the syrup sets and sticks everything together. This is the point at which mine got messy, but that's why I've told you to leave a good border of pastry. So fingers crossed. I'm sure they'll taste fabulous, what ever they look like.