Then on to my least favourite bake of the whole series, pork yucky pie. To make it worse they're with my other hate of boiled eggs. Well there was light at the end of the tunnel as I really loved my apple and raspberry meringue pie.
My aunty Helen had been making an apple meringue pie for years and gave me a basic recipe to which I jiggled around and came up with these flavours.
2lb cooking apples peeled and sliced
punnet raspberry
2oz caster sugar
1oz butter
Grated rind of 2 lemons
100ml water
3 eggs separated
4oz caster sugar
Red food colour paste
9oz plain flour
4 1/2 oz cold butter
2 egg yolks
2 tbsp sug
Pinch salt
1-4 tsp cream
Put flour, butter, salt and sugar into food processor, pulse until breadcrumb like,add egg yolks and cream if needed. Rest in fridge until needed, line a 8 inch loose bottom flan tin, cover with grease proof and baking beans bake blind for 15-20 mins
Cook apples with butter lemon zest and water until soft then turn up heat and cook until a dry puree, stirring frequently. Cool mixture slightly then beat in egg yolks, add raspberries
put into baked sweetcrust pastry case. Whisk egg whites until stiff. Slowly add sugar then run a ripple of red food colouring through,pipe onto pie. Bake in oven at 160 for 15-20 mins
Paul's pork pies (taken from BBC website)
200g/7oz plain flour
40g/1½oz strong white flour
50g/1¾oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes
100ml/3½fl oz water
1 tsp salt
60g/2¼oz lard
For the filling:
6 quails' eggs
1 onion, very finely chopped
350g/12oz pork loin, finely chopped
100g/3½oz unsmoked streaky bacon, finely chopped
small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 free-range egg, beaten
1 chicken stock cube
150ml/5fl oz boiling water
2 leaves gelatine
Preparation method:
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Grease a 6-hole muffin tin
To make the pastry, sift the flours into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Bring the water and salt to a boil then add the lard and stir until the lard has melted.
Pour the lard and water over the flour mixture and stir to form a dough. Tip the dough onto a floured work surface and work into a smooth ball (you must work quickly or the dough will become too firm to handle).
Roll the pastry out to a thickness of about 3mm/⅛in. Cut out six 15cm/6in circles and use each circle to line a hole in the muffin tin. Cut six 10cm/4in circles for the lids and set them aside.
For the filling, cook the quails' eggs in a pan of boiling water for two minutes then refresh in cold water, peel carefully and set aside.
Put the onion, pork, bacon and parsley into a bowl, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and mix until well combined. Spoon a little of the mixture into each lined pie case, place a quail's egg in the centre and spoon over a little more filling.
Brush the edge of each pie case with a little beaten egg, place the lids on top and crimp the edges together to seal completely. Make a small hole in centre of each pie and bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
When the pies are cooked, set them aside to cool for 10 minutes. Dissolve the stock cube in the boiling water. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water until soft then squeeze out excess water and whisk into the warm chicken stock.
Pour the gelatine mixture into the hole in the top of each pie until the hollow cavity within the pie is filled. Allow the pies to set in the fridge overnight.
