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!