Who ate all the pies?

Why, I did!

Yummy flaky pastry with a chicken and bacon filling. And I found a new use for the cake cooker!

Hello again!

It is now my mini pie machine...

Look how very pie-like those little holes are!

I started off by making the pie filling - frying onions, bacon, chicken and mushrooms together until cooked, and adding a tarragon flavoured bechamel/veloute sauce.
(equal amounts of butter and flour melted together over a low heat, with hot milk and stock whisked in until smooth, and tarragon and seasoning added to taste)

Rough puff pastry

6oz plain flour
1.5oz cold butter - grated
1.5oz cold lard - grated
Ice cold water

Makes 7-8 pies depending on how big you cut the circles!

• add the cold grated fat to the flour, and rub together with your fingertips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs
• add water 1 tablespoon at a time, and bring the mixture together with a palette knife. Only add enough water to just bring the mix together.
• using your hands incorporate any crumbs into the dough as you form a ball with it.
• refrigerate for 30 minutes.
• roll out onto a floured surface

• cut out circles of pastry to form the base of the pie, and slightly smaller discs to form the lid.

• set up the cake machine- allow to come to temperature before opening - and feed the pie bases into the holes into the machine. Gently tap into the dip using a balled up piece of pastry.
• fill each case with a tablespoon of chicken mix, and top with a lid.

The various stages of pie cooking! Yeah, it looks pretty gross there...

 

 

• Close the lid of the cooker, and leave to cook for 10 minutes, or until golden and crisp.

Some of them may need a little trimming!

Look at that! Golden and crisp!

Look at that too... flaky!!

And not a soggy bottom in sight!

Christmas Biscuits

Ingredients:

8oz softened butter
5oz caster sugar
1 egg yolk
2tsp flavouring (here I've used vanilla)
10oz plain flour

• Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy looking.
• Beat the egg yolk and vanilla together, before mixing into the butter and sugar.
• Sift in the flour, and mix until just combined.
• Wrap in cling film, and refrigerate for at least half an hour.
• Roll out the dough on a well floured surface and cut out shapes.
• Bake on lined trays at 180oC for 10-15minutes until golden brown.
• Leave to firm on the trays for 5 minutes, before transferring to cooling racks

When cooled they can be decorated with icing and Christmas coloured sprinkles!

 

These can be made in various flavours, such as orange or lemon, with flavoured icing.

And if you fancy chocolate chip cookies, add chips at stage three as you're mixing the flour in.

Chocolate Tarts

This is a combination of two delicious recipes!

Mince pie tart cases: Recipe here and the truffle recipe here

Make up the tart cases according to the recipe - this will make about double the number of tarts as it did mince pies as there are no lids...
Blind bake the cases in the pre-heated oven - line each tart with greaseproof paper, and fill with baking beads. This will stop the cases bubbling up when they cook. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Remove from the oven, and allow to cool in their trays

Make up a batch of the truffle mix using orange flavouring, rather than rum.The difference in this recipe is that you need to use the mix while it's still liquid, so don't allow it to set.
When the cases have cooled, and been removed from the trays, pour some of the chocolate mix into each.
Tap each case gently on the work surface to level out the mixture.
Allow to set - this may take up to 2 hours at room temperature.

Butter-free Chocolate Cake

I wanted cake...
I had no butter. Sad times.

What to do... what to do?

This is surely the reason Google was invented! Here's a recipe for a chocolate cake which *doesn't* need butter or margarine!

(I've listed the amounts that I used, which was half the original recipe)

• 4oz plain flour
• 6.25oz caster sugar
• 1.5oz cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 egg
• 4.5floz milk
• 2.25floz vegetable oil
• 4.5floz boiling water

- Heat the oven to 180oC, grease and line an 8inch sandwich tin (avoid using springform loose bottomed tins. This is a very liquid mix!)
- Measure out the dry ingredients into a large bowl, and the liquid ingredients (but not the hot water) into a measuring jug. Using a wooden spoon combine the ingredients in the bowl, beating until smooth.

-Add the boiling water, a little at a time, and continue to mix until smooth.
-Bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake.
-Allow to cool completely before attempting to remove from the tin (if you try to peel the paper off while the cake is still warm, it will crumble...)

-Decorate the cake with either a chocolate ganache topping, or melted chocolate cake covering (because this is such a moist, squishy cake, a slightly liquid topping is better than a solid one)

Honey Cake

A honey cake recipe, in a square tin, especially for Eileen.

6oz butter (+ extra for greasing)
6oz clear honey
4oz soft light brown sugar
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1-2 tbsp milk
8oz self-raising flour

Pre heat oven to 180oC

- Grease and line a 9in square tin with baking parchment
- Gently heat the butter, honey and sugar in a (large-ish) pan, stirring gently until the honey has disolved and the butter has melted. Leave to cool slightly.
- In two batches, beat the egg and milk into the cooled mixture in the pan.
- Sift the flour over this, and beat well. The batter should be smooth and have a pouring consistancy
- Transfer the mixture into the tin and bake for 30 mins, or until well risen, golden brown and firm to the touch.
- Leave for 20mins before removing to a wire rack to cool completely, and then cut into squares.

(From The Best Ever Book of Cakes by Ann Nichol)

Mince Pies!

Mmmmm Pie!

Makes (about!) 18, nice crisp-cased pies.
This recipe has recipe has resulted in two offers of marriage, and one slightly less salubrious offer...

Ingredients

8oz plain flour
5oz cold cubed marg
3oz icing sugar
3tbsp ice cold water
Standard size jar of mincemeat

(have to hand a bowl of 2 parts flour/ 1 part icing sugar for dusting hands and surfaces)

Method

-Sift the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl, add the cold butter to this, and rub together with finger tips, creating a breadcrumb-like mix.

-Add the water one tablespoon at a time, bringing the mix together to form a dough. Don't add all the water at once, it might not need it all - different flours absorb different amounts of water.

 

-As it comes together use your hands to make it into a ball. Dust your hands with icing sugar to prevent sticking if necessary.

- Wrap the dough in cling film, and refrigerate for at least half an hour (if leaving to chill overnight, remove it from the fridge about 15 minutes before rolling it out)

- Dust a clean work surface and your rolling pin with the flour/icing sugar and begin to roll out the dough. keep rotating the pastry, and re-dust regularly.

 

- Roll out to the thickness of a pound coin

- Cut out circles of the dough and line a shallow cup-cake tin. (I've experimented here, and found that you don't need to grease a non stick tin - the pies haven't stuck yet!)

 

- Fill each pie case with mincemeat - depending on the size of your cake tins, this will take between one and two teaspoons.

 

- Top each pie with another circle of pastry and gently press around the edges to seal.

- Bake in for 15-20 minutes in an oven,  pre-heated to 180oC

 
- Allow to cool and harden in the tin

 

-  Either dust evenly (ahem) with icing sugar

- Or drench in whisky flavoured icing!!