after a lovely drawn out late summer, autumn is firmly upon us. i love this season; i have been far too excited to whip out all my berry and jewel shade dresses, don my boots and prepare for knitwear making a return. crisp walks around the park are great for clearing the head and lungs. and, more pertinently for this blog, baking becomes super comforting.
autumn is all about using the fruits of the season, filling sponges, hearty pies and warming spices. this is comfort food at its best and works wonders to chase away any approaching winter blues.
so when my mum informed me that she had some blackberries that needed using, i did not have to be asked twice to whip up a homely apple and blackberry pie.
ingredients ready to go
with this being a lazy sunday bake, i opted to buy premade pastry because i am impatient and wanted pie!
i used a jamie oliver recipe as a rough guideline - but instead of using stem ginger i used ground ginger and cinnamon (copiously!)
first job - peeling and chopping all the apples!
melting butter and sugar together, sinfully good
the apples are slowly stewed down, with the blackberries being added near the end
a lovely pink colour develops as your stir the blackberries through
gcse art skills coming in to play...
and after a while in the oven...
sweet, sweet pie!
this recipe is really easy to follow and do, which is perfect for those times where you just want something tasty as quickly as possible! serve with cream, ice cream or custard (or perhaps an indulgent combo?!) and enjoy after a sunday roast, in front of the fire... perfect!
having made it through the madness that is final year and secured myself employment, it is with a tentative excitement that i return to my much missed outlet of blogging. now i can only hope that you haven't all completely given up on me!
the unfortunately minimal baking that has been occurring recently has led to a back log of baking books that i have purchased but never used! (other than to drool over of course) so i thought this would be a good place to start - and where better than with my beloved john whaite? his second offering is John Whaite Bakes At Home and follows a similar style to the first book, very matte and minimal.
i was lucky enough to meet john when he came to a book signing at exeter. my poor friend april was somewhat embarrassed to be in the shop with me as i promptly freaked out! but i managed to pull myself together and we had a lovely little chat about the perils of final year and the bad luck to have a birthday around exam time. (i was celebrating my fake birthday that day due to my actual birthday falling in the easter holidays, aka dissertation/exam lock down time)
i one day aspire to have such beautiful writing!
so, fan girling aside, i settled on the chocolate and lime pie as a simple recipe which looked perfect to ease myself back in. so many recipes now take up two pages or more, and i mostly far too lazy to deal with that!
the recipe begins with a buttery biscuit base...
sorry, it just has to be done
the recipe says to use a food processor, but bashing biscuits with a rolling pin is infinitely more satifying!
once the base has chilled, it's on to making the filling which is also super simple - just how i like it!
i find mini graters (i think i got mine from a hot chocolate gift set) ideal for grating citrus fruits, especially smaller limes, as you have more control and i feel there is less wastage
perhaps not the most visually appealing mix?
for baking the pie, i found the instructions were not quite right for my oven. the recipe suggests 20-25 minutes at 180° until the pie trembles, however i found that mine was quite rapidly bubbling away! so i turned the oven right down and left it in for a further ten minutes. at this point it seemed much more solid.
a great test of patience then occurs as the pie has to completely cool and then set in the fridge (never something you want to read in a recipe!)
so it turns out getting this pie out of the tin is not the easiest thing ever! the biscuit base is very crumbly and delicate, hence the crumb explosion all over the work top
low marks for presentation - the delicate nature of the base meant getting the bottom of the tin from under the pie was not going to happen
definitely not a thing of beauty but rustic chic is very in...
taste wise i'm a bit on the fence with this bake - the lime taste is very strong and overpowers the chocolate (especially as this is almost 'diluted' coming through a biscuit) so maybe i would include one less lime? the crust was definitely the best part, because of the better balance between filling and base. but definitely not a write off and an interesting experiment with different ingredients! the filling is very similar in texture to a cheesecake, which - as with a cheesecake - works well contrasted against the biscuit base.
well there we go, i'm back in business and hoping to get a weekly bake going to distract from the tedium of 9-5!
well there goes my 'post a week' resolution - but i'm only a few days out so i hope you can forgive me!
for this post we are harking back to a bakesoc social from last term - pie night! this was another of our bake & bring socials, held at a swanky bar in exeter. the requirements were simple - anything vaguely pie related was allowed, sweet or savoury.
i teamed up with my history girls to create a dual pie offering - pecan and apple.
for the pecan pies we adapted a hummingbird recipe (by adapted i think we didn't have treacle as well as golden syrup so just used more of the latter, this explains why they aren't perhaps as dark in colour as expected).
a while ago i bought some individual tart cases in a sale and this was the first chance i've had to use them - it's nice to make individual portions and they can look great when arranged on a plate.
here they are fresh out of the oven
personally i am not huge fan of pecan pie but i am assured that these were really good (although when given compliments we did have to confess that we had used ready made pastry but let's keep that on the down low!)
our second offering was puff pastry apple pies - from a lorraine pascale recipe (again we cheated with the pastry) but we did make the apple filling ourselves.
unfortunately in the rush of making two types of pie on a short deadline i completely forgot to egg wash them (having even beaten an egg in preparation...!) so they don't have the golden outside as seen on lorraine's. however they tasted really good. i love apple pastries and puff pastry is always such a treat!
note the artistic apple scored into the top!
about to go in the oven (minus the egg wash - whoops!)
on display at the social (student economy of transportation and display device in one tin!)
at the social itself there were so many gorgeous different types of pie that we all felt quite sick at the end from the amount we had eaten!
in this photo you can see the pecan pies but also the grasshopper pie and mince pies made by our presidents.
the grasshopper pie is an american creation and is quite like a cheesecake. i absolutely loved it - it was like mint choc chip ice cream in a creamy pie form (and that is one of my favourite ice cream flavours!)
the mince pies were equally scrummy - they contained cranberries and almonds which added a refreshing twist and everyone who knows me knows i do love a good mince pie!
another of the other offerings was savoury. apologies for the odd looking photo but these were shaped like mini pasties and contained spinach, feta and sun dried tomatoes (if i remember correctly!). they were moreish and i could have easily polished off many of these. (i'm still trying to hunt down the recipe).
well i hope this has made you sufficiently hungry for lunch and perhaps inspires you to make a pie of your own. they are so easy to make, especially if you buy ready made pastry (i certainly won't be judging you!)
