A pie for all seasons...

One rainy Saturday afternoon I treated myself to the new Pieminister book. I've visited the Pieminister shop in St. Nicholas market in Bristol many times and always loved their array of pies. 


Available from here

My first impressions of the book were very good. Lots of lovely pictures, varied sweet and savory recipes and lots hints and tips.

After a good perusal, I made the "Deerstalker Pie" last weekend for friends. This is a venison based pie with celeriac, puy lentils and sausage on a shortcrust base and topped with suet pastry. I decided to cook the venison filling overnight in the slow cooker which worked really well and made sure the meat and veggies melted in the mouth. Then on the Sunday, I made the two types of pastry and assembled the individual pies.

Deerstalker Pie Recipe

The recipe was very easy to follow, produced generous portions (I hate stingy recipes!) and they went down a storm. I served the pies with minted mushy peas, mustard mash, cider soaked spicy red cabbage, roasted carrots and gravy. Yum.

My version

A successful first venture into the world of Pieminister. I'm looking forward to trying more! And, the added bonus of this new addition to the bakery book collection..?

#1. Brownie points from the Cake Pimp (who is originally from Bristol) for making his favourite pies.
#2. Cider. A West Country cider recipe to be exact. Blummin' genius.

Cider Recipe. Genius

Is it wrong to want pie and cider for every meal?!

V x

Banoffee and GBBO...

I'm addicted to TV cookery shows. I'll watch anything. Ranging from Masterchef, Celebrity Masterchef, Australian Masterchef (I love the competitive x-factor edge!), Saturday Kitchen, any celebrity chef programme etc etc etc. I've been told by the Cake Pimp that under no uncertain terms can I get the Sky Food Channels. He is trying to curb my habit. Meany.

I have a particularly soft spot for The Great British Bake Off which finished last week. I love seeing the successes, failures, challenges and the simply fabulous recipes. I love sitting from the comfort of my armchair/soap box stating "I wouldn't do it like that.... I could do that... that's so hard..... wow, look at that!" I also love Berry and Hollywood talking about soggy bases.

As the Beeb has been so kind as to pop the recipes from the show here and after the rave reviews that the winner Joanne received for her Banoffee Pie recipe in the final, I thought I'd give it a whirl. And they were yummy. Really yummy. You can see why she won!

The recipe was surprisingly straight forward. The only sticking point came making the toffee. I took my eye off the saucepan for a second and had a black mess. Oh well, practice makes perfect and the second batch worked much better! I made a slight change to the recipe through the addition of some slices of banana to the top of the toffee. I just thought they'd be better with an added element of flavour and texture. Apart from that, I stuck to the recipe completely.

Here are some pictures of the end results.

The finished result... nom.

Next up on the bake off to test list are the Millefeuilles... I fancy the challenge of the rough puff pastry.

Report to follow!

V x