Mmmm, Pie

All hail the Pie Queen. That’s me. I am the Pie Queen. This week I have been successfully making a series of the best pies ever, and have therefore crowned myself Queen of Pies.

But you don’t get to be Pie Queen all by yourself. Any potential Pie Queen (Pie Princess, if you will), needs a dedicated team of Pie Courtiers to inspire her and push her towards the Pie Crown. In my case I would like to thank:
Mrs Z, for giving me the blackberries that made me want to make a pie for the first time in years
Anna C. Sloan, for giving me some excellent pastry tips (she is also a Pie Queen, but of a different province)
Pete, for being a willing audience and eater of pies, and encouraging the making and eating of further pies.

All hail Bronwen, Queen of Pies.

But I digress. Let us get to the recipe. This pie is the first pie I made recently, which is an Apple and Blackberry Pie.

Pastry:
200g plain flour
100g butter
1 tbsp icing sugar
Small amount of chilled water

Filling:
1 large cooking apple
Handful blackberries (Zborowski brand blackberries are preferred, but not essential)
Sugar
Butter

The reason I have not made pies for so long is the pastry. My Nan can make amazing pastry, but it has long been a source of consternation to both myself and my mother that it seems almost impossible to replicate. We do all the right things; half fat to flour, rub into breadcrumbs, add water to bind it, leave it to rest, try to keep it as cold as possible. And yet my pastry remained functional but unimpressive. The revelation occurred after speaking to Anna, fellow queen, who focuses on the cold. I usually kept the pastry chilled, but rubbing the fat into the flour necessitates some level of heat. Aha, says, Anna, but I combine them with knives! Knives, say I, well how about that. I see your knives and raise you (dun dun DUN) a food processor! How do like them apples?! Cooked in a pie most likely!

To conclude, I have developed my own method. It is as follows.

Weigh out 100g chilled butter, and cut it into fairly small pieces while trying not to touch it. Dust it with a little flour and stick it in the freezer. Also pour a little water into a mug and stick that in the freezer too. Weigh out 200g flour and sift straight into a food processor along with the icing sugar. By the time you’re done with that the butter should be quite hard. Stick that in the processor as well, and start it up on the lowest setting. As soon as the mix starts looking suitably lumpy (and BEFORE it has completely turned to breadcrumbs) start pouring in the water, a little bit at a time, until the mixture binds and forms a ball. This ensures that the dough has some large bits of butter in, which makes the pastry nice and flaky. Scoop it out and wrap in cling-film, then leave it in the fridge to rest. I tend to make pastry quite late in the evening, and leave assembling the pie to the next day.

Once the pastry is chilled and rested, cut the dough in half. Dust the work surface and rolling pin with flour, but try to keep adding any more to a minimum – the pastry will absorb it and become tough. Roll the pastry until it’s large enough to cover the bottom of your pie dish (which should be well buttered). Prick the bottom with a fork, and blind bake it by filling the base with rice in baking parchment. This will stop the pastry from puffing up. Put in a preheated oven at 200 or Gas Mark 6 for 15 min, then take out the rice and leave for a further 10 min. While it is cooking roll out the pie lid, leave on a plate and stick back in the fridge.

Now for a tip: I was concerned that as the pastry was quite thin the filling might make the bottom soggy. I wanted something at the bottom to soak up the juice. Flour would turn into a paste, and breadcrumbs would be too soft. I’ve heard that semolina works, but I don’t have any semolina. What I did have was cous-cous. The cous-cous grains themselves are too large and I didn’t want them to interfere with the texture of the pie, so I put them through Mr Grindy with a couple of cloves to make a magical, spicy, juice absorbing powder. I sprinkled this on the base of the pie before I added the filling.

The filling itself I didn’t cook, but layered slices of apple on top of each other, sprinkled over a handful of blackberries and some sugar, and dotted little cubes of butter on top. Then I laid the lid over the top of the pie, poked a whole in the top with a knife to let the steam escape, and put back in the oven for 25-30 min until golden brown.

And how did it turn out? Well how do you expect? I am the Pie Queen.

Things I like: Electric Boogaloo

This is a special edition of ‘Things I Like’, where the machines have taken over.

Popcorn Maker

Who on earth needs a popcorn maker? I’ll tell you who: muggins here. I’ve tried making popcorn on the hob but it’s never right. They only half pop, or they burn and stick to the bottom of the pan. So I am very proud to present Old Pops here. He came from Pete’s parents, and I am profoundly grateful. I have been playing around with various flavourings, and my favourite so far has been icing sugar mixed with ground cinnamon, although paprika is also very nice. And colourful. For those of you with more testicular fortitude than I possess, Pete tells me that sprinkling a little wasabi powder on top works very well.

As far as I can tell, there is only one downside. Occasionally a greasy and super-heated unpopped kernel will shoot out at high speed, and if you just so happen to be wearing a low cut top it will fall down your top and burn you under your right boob, and there’s nothing you can do about it. On the plus side, plentiful popcorn will comfort you and distract you from the pain.

Food Processor

I have missed you, old friend. My parents got it for me from a car boot sale a few years ago, and I loved it. It has a few different blades, but I only ever use one. When I moved into my old house, my housemate had a big, super duper food processor. With functions. Mine doesn’t have functions. Look at it. It chops, it chops fast, and it chops very fast. Those are the options. So I decided that I should leave mine in my parents loft, as no one needs two food processors in a house. Fool that I was. Although my housemate’s machine was undoubtedly awesome I could never figure out how to work it. Now I have been reunited with my old buddy, and I couldn’t be happier.

The ‘Machine’

In my mind this has always looked like a cross between the Pixar lamp and the alien from, you know, Alien. Either way, it’s damn cute. I tend to favour instant coffee for convenience sake, but I crack out ‘The Machine’ on special occasions. It makes a couple of strong little espressos, which you can add water to for an Americano, or milk for a Latte. I really can’t think of anything finer in life than waking up a little later than usual on a Saturday morning, having a croissant and a fresh cup of coffee and settling down on a big sofa to watch Saturday Kitchen or some nonsense like that. The Machine makes me happy.

Lemon Sauce Pudding vs. The Scales of Justice

Regular readers may have noticed by now that I am often a little non-specific when it comes to amounts needed in recipes. My standard basic unit of measurement is ‘some’.


Yeah, about that much.

This is not because I am a particularly intuitive cook who simply doesn’t need to measure anything but, sadly, out of necessity. The last pair of scales I owned were so wildly inaccurate that I figured I’d be best off without them, and never bothered replacing them. Mainly I’ve been able to get along more or less ok without, but my baking adventures have definitely taken a hit. I’m fine with biscuits and cakes where I’ve made them so many times I can get away without using scales, but it’s really difficult to follow a new recipe by guesswork alone. Well no longer!

The tables have turned and the Scales of Justice have arrived! (£1 from Save the Children, if you’re curious). I celebrated their arrival by making a pudding that I loved as a child, and demanded my mother make as often as I could without getting glared at. Lemon Sauce Pudding is that creature, and she is a beauty.

The attraction of this pudding is the fact that it separates during cooking to make a light sponge on top and a thick lemony sauce underneath. It is the coolest thing.

Y’all be needin:

2oz Plain flour
2oz butter 4 oz caster sugar
2 eggs, separated
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
8fl oz milk

Cream the butter and sugar together and beat in the egg yolks. Fold in the sifted flour. Add the zest and juice, and slowly mix in the milk. At this point it will look curdled. This is because it has curdled. It will look dreadful. But stick with it, this is what helps it to separate during cooking. Does that sound right? It sounds about right. Yeah, let’s say that’s what it is.

Whisk the egg white until it stands in stiff peaks, and fold into the sloppy, curdled mess. Pour into a greased baking dish and cook for 30-40 min in a moderate oven - About Gas Mark 4, I should say..

I would recommend a deep rather than a shallow dish, as this keeps it from drying out and the sauce stays all... saucy.