tart

Galette Des Rois and other food celebrations

6th January 2017 by Regula 7 Comments

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrated it, and I wish you a smashing new year! There are lots of exciting things to come of which I will tell you more very soon but until then…

Since in the previous years I told you about English Epiphany or Twelfth Day celebrations, I thought I’d share the tradition of my side of the English channel with you today.
Like the Twelfth cake of which I wrote two years ago (see the post here), in my region we also have a cake, or tart with a hidden bean, coin or trinket.

It is called a ‘Three Kings Tart’ or ‘Driekoningentaart’, a puff pastry pie filled with the most satisfying almond filling which is when made well – addictive. If you find the bean or trinket in your piece of tart you are king for the day and the crown is all yours. To my regret I never found a bean in my piece of tart until two years ago. Oh the disappointment when I was a little girl, the frustration that it was always one of the adults who got the crown! I mean, they should have hidden it in my piece, shouldn’t they?? Traditionally the children would go out to sing from door to door for sweets and money, dressed up like the three kings.

We sadly haven’t got a traditional drink like the Lambswool (see that post here) which comes with the beautiful tradition of ‘wassailing’ which means to feast and run around the orchards to chase away evil spirits and wake up the trees.

I can’t tell you how much I adore this tart and the sight of bakery shop windows filled with ‘Galette Des Rois’ all topped with a festive golden paper crown. It reminds me of the stories I read about children gathering outside the bakery’s shop window to see the magnificent Twelfth Cakes over a century ago. The seasonal bakes that appear in bakeries always make my heart skip a beat. I walk passed Antwerp’s oldest bakery just to see the window display: the large speculoos figurines around Saint Nickolas, the chocolate eggs around Easter, the prune tarts when it’s Ash Wednesday and these terrific ‘Three Kings Tarts’ which the French and our French speaking Belgians call ‘Galette Des Rois’. In France the tarts are also known as Pithiviers, named after the town in the Loiret in the south of Paris, where they allegedly originated from….

Cherry tart and prostitution

14th July 2015 by Regula 18 Comments

When I was a little girl my parents and I used to travel around Hungary in the summer. I can still remember the warm climate, and the little dresses I wore, many of which I have in a shoe box upstairs. What I also remember is the Bed and Breakfast, back then called ‘Zimmer frei’ in Hungary, which was run by an old couple. The woman looked a lot like my aunt and the man I can’t remember much. Their house was large for Hungary and by a main road, not far from a little restaurant by the river Danube where I always ate a very good omelette for supper.

Our time with the old couple was like staying with your grandparents, sure communication was complicated, they spoke a little German, so did my parents, and I as a four year old strangely enough spoke a good word of German too. They were loving people and love can be shown without the language barrier. Each day we entered our room, the old lady surprised us with a large stone bowl of the most plump cherries I have ever seen. As a child, and a picky eater, those cherries were some kind of heaven. Food I knew, and was so expensive at home that I could never really eat so many that my fingers would be stained in cherry juice.
And every day a bowl appeared, and every day we were greeted by the most loving smiles and gestures by these two wonderful people.

Two years after our last visit to the old couple’s Zimmer Frei we decided to do a detour and stay with them for a couple of nights. I requested it especially because I was eager to see my Hungarian grandparents as they had become to be for me. My parents too had never encountered such kindness and were eager to stay there again too.

So we drove to the rather large Hungarian house and as we parked the car I ran towards the door where the old lady – she must have been in her early seventies – was sitting in her chair.
But while I was running towards her the first thing I noticed was the anxious look in her eyes, and then the dress that she wore. As before she always wore granny clothes, now she was wearing a black embroidered dress with a deep decollete and very large earrings.

Anxious as she was, but really happy to see us, she told my parents that she would love it if we would stay but that she was no longer a Zimmer Frei since her husband had died the year before.
I wondered what the young girls were doing there if she wasn’t offering lodgings anymore, and somehow, while she was showing us to our room and I saw how the house had changed and lost all its granny appeal, I knew. I knew without without having the knowledge of years.
Heartbroken and realising that there might not be a bowl of cherries in our room each day, and hurt by the uncomfortable anxious look in my Hungarian grandma’s eyes we said we’d go for dinner and then come back to decide if we would stay.

The granny had tears in her eyes, and I felt like she was holding on to the summers and the bowls of cherries as much as I was doing. But those times were gone. The light had gone out in the rather large Hungarian house. It was replaced by sorrow, regret, and a need for survival.

So we ate an omelette at the restaurant by the river, and my parents gave me the choice on whether to stay at the granny’s house. Too young to understand what was happening at the house, but old enough to feel there was something wrong, I told them that I felt that it wasn’t right for us to stay there.

So we drove back to the granny’s house, and said our goodbyes, granny still trying to convince us we were so very welcome. But I was feeling so very sad. I could not understand what had happened and somehow I knew that by staying we would not only make her happy, we would also maker her very sad.

She had made her choice, and there would be no more bowls of cherries.

I hope she was at peace at the end of her life, so very long ago.

In her memory I have prepared this cherry tart, inspired by 18th century tarts, some of which you’ll find in my upcoming book. It’s a perfect tart to make when you have leftover sponge cake, that way you don’t need to bake a cake especially. The tart has a pleasant texture, though not like the tarts you are probably used to. Let me know if you’ve tried it!

x R

Cherry tart with curstard and sponge cake

What you need

Shortcrust pastry

180 g white flour
100g cold butter
20 g icing sugar
tiny pinch salt
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp of cold water

Custard

250 ml cream
3 egg yolks
a blade of mace
a stick of cinnamon
1tbsp of raw cane sugar

Filling

Sponge cake, preferably stale
2 tbsp of brandy (optional)
a punnet of cherries
2 tbsp of unsalted butter – or bone marrow
22-24 sized pie pan or plate

Method

For the pastry

Take your butter and cut it into small pieces.

Put your flour into a food processor and add the butter and sugar.

Pulse for 8 seconds until your mixture has a bread crumb consistency.

To do this by hand, just use a blunt knife, cutting the knife through the butter and flour to work them together to a bread crumb consistency.

Add the water and egg yolk and pulse until you get big lumps, then turn out your pastry and knead briefly until smooth.

Now pack the pastry in cling film and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 180-190C

Make the custard by bringing the cream to a gentle simmer with the sugar and spices. In a bowl beat the egg yolks, pour a small amount of warm cream into your egg yolks and whisk thoroughly. This prepares your yolks for the hot liquid and will prevent it from curdling. Now start adding the rest of the cream, whisking until it is all incorporated. Allow to cool, then strain out the spices.

Cut your stale sponge cake in small dice and drizzle over the brandy.

Blind bake your pastry case in the middle of your oven for 25 minutes, allow to cool.

Now arrange your cherries and cake into the tart casing, placing a piece of cake in between each cherry. You can stone your cherries, or not, I left the stones and stalks on this time, but you can remove them if you are going to serve children, the tart eats easier of course without the stones.

When your tast casing is filled with cherries and cake, arrange little knobs of butter randomly in between your cherries and cake.

Now carefully pour in your custard, making sure it is evenly spread.

Place the tart in the middle of your oven and bake for 30-40 minutes or until nicely golden brown.

Dust with icing sugar, serve cold or lukewarm.

You might also enjoy these:

Kentish Cobnut and apple tart >

Tudor prune tarts >

Treacle tarts and Treacle miners
Cherry brandy >

Sweet Cheese Curd Tarts and the Road to a Book

28th May 2014 by Regula 17 Comments

Those who follow my instagram already know that I have been working on my very own book the last few months. (There is even a # hash tag on it to follow some of the process, I know, how very modern of me.) It is a scary yet exciting journey, one with occasional bumps in the road and one with smooth pathways. I thought it would be easy, I couldn’t be more wrong.

I am fortunate that my publisher was super excited about me to design the book myself and photograph it, which isn’t a given thing. They gave me the freedom to come up with a concept no matter how crazy it sounded. They wanted the book to be ‘totally me’. This was always something that was made up in my mind. If the book would be designed by someone else and photographed by someone else, it would not be my book. I would not want that book. This isn’t a narcissistic urge to just get ‘a‘ book out there, this is an artistic project for me. I have been a graphic designer my whole professional life, I have done numerous layouts for books, booklets and magazines. Not being allowed to design and layout my own book would just feel completely and utterly wrong. But of course, this means doing the work of 3 maybe 4 people all on my very own…
I will have to turn down future jobs to get be able to do this big book project but the book will by no means pay enough so I can pay my bills. All the money from the advance, the layout work and the photography will go to the actual creating of this book. But although I would have liked to at least have some tiny profit, I am also very happy that the subject of my book wasn’t chosen for me, and that I can really do what I want. I have had other offers from publishers, who had the subject of my book already decided for me, of course I had to turn them down. As I said, this is not just ‘a‘ book.

Because of the significance of this project, I often freeze and can’t write or cook or photograph. Being a creative creature means you constantly doubt your work, and push yourself and push and push. I ask myself constantly, is this perfect enough. In every word and image I put an enormous effort, the story I tell needs to be right, it needs to transport you. I am not shooting a book, I am creating images that will hopefully whisk you away to my imaginary English cottage with limestone walls and a cream colored coal fired Aga stove. I want you to smell the slightly burnt toast that has the flavour unmatched by any toaster because it has been toasted on that oh so coveted AGA coal fire.

When I freeze, it is the moment when I am in doubt. Doubt is your enemy.
You must not forget, I started my own business as a freelance photographer/graphic designer/writer in januari, which means I am not surrounded by colleagues anymore, I work alone, and often I will be abroad, alone in my B&B. There’s no ‘can we have a chat about the concept or designs’ like in the advertising agency I worked at. I have to ask myself if it is right, I have to be objective and not let my heart get too much involved in it.
Which is hard, because I am a very passionate person. There is hardly any grey in me, it is either good or bad. There is no ‘this will do’ in my book – literally and figuratively speaking.

I am writing about this because I know a few people in our little online food lovers community who are also working on a book or book proposal. Sometimes to read someone else saying it is not a walk in the park, helps you to be okay with it, if one a day you wake up and are overtaken by the fear this great project brings with it.
It happens to us all.

But also because I need your help, I need people who would like to be involved and test a recipe for me, or more if you’re up to it. Eternal gratitude to my recipe testers so please get in touch if you want to get cooking for me – my email is on my contact page.

But on to that tart you see here, this is a sweet cheese curd tart with lemon. It is one of the recipes you just develop by accident, while trying to make something else you come up with an equally scrumptious dish.
Sweetened cheese curds have been used as a sweet treat on its own and in tarts for centuries, early recipes like this are the very first ancestors of the cheesecake we know today. Because I have used lard in the pastry, the tart has a sweet yet also savoury hint which is perfect for the likes of me who do not enjoy a very sweet treat.

What do you need (makes two 14 cm tarts)

Best is to start the day before you want to bake these tarts

pastry

250g plain flour
75 g butter
50 g lard
0,5 tsp baking powder
30 g sugar
1 egg yolk
baking paper for blind baking

filling

300g cheese curds
2 eggs
100 g sugar
25 g melted butter
1 tsp of orange blossom water
the zest of 1 lemon

Cheese curds

3l full fat preferably raw milk
2 tsp salt
2 tsp rennet (find it online)
4 tsp buttermilk or lemon juice
a cheese cloth

To make the cheese curds
heat 3 liters of full fat preferably raw milk to exactly 37 degrees Celcius.
add salt, rennet – you can buy it online and I used vegetarian and add buttermilk or lemon juice, butter milk works best
stir and leave to stand for 15 minutes – 30 minutes until the milk has separated from the whey. When the milk has separated from the whey, transfer the curdled milk to a bowl covered in cheese cloth. Drain the curds, leave them to hang for 3-5 hours
You might have some left after making the tarts, the cheese is good on its own, I like to salt it slightly and use in salads

The pastry
Mix the butter and lard into the flour with a round bladed knife, do this until you get a mixture that looks like breadcrumbs, add sugar and the egg yolk and bring the dough together. Be careful not to overwork the dough or it will get too chewy, place in the fridge to become firm. You can do this the day before too.

The filling
Put the curds into a clean bowl and tear them apart in smaller pieces, add the eggs, sugar, melted butter, orange blossom water and the lemon zest and leave to stand while you roll out your pastry.
Preheat your oven to 180°C
Roll out your pastry and place it in your tart tins, trim the edges and prick the bottom of the tart with a fork
Place baking paper over the pastry (make a round shape by folding the paper, so it fits better) and place baking beans or rice on top. Pop in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes or until golden in color

When the tart casings are ready, pour the curd mixture into each tart and pop in the oven until they bubble up nicely and become nice and yellow in color.

Serve as you will, I decorated mine with violets for this occasion.

Good with a glass of Whisky or Rum.

You might also enjoy
The tarts at Tudor court

Further reading
How writing a book is different than a blog / David Lebovitz on Dianne Jacob’s website

The Prune Tarts at Tudor Court

19th June 2013 by Regula 24 Comments

In 1615 English poet Gervase Markham mentioned ‘a prune tart’ in his book “The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman“.
In his beautiful way of writing he states:
“Take of the fairest damask prunes you can get, and put them in a clean pipkin with fair water, sugar, unbruised cinnamon, and a branch or two of rosemary; and if you have bread to bake, stew them in the oven with your bread…”

He goes on to explain in detail how to finish the prune puree and how to assemble the little tarts he likes to shape into little birds and flowers by first cutting out a pattern in paper to trace on the pastry. The tart cases or ‘coffins’ as they were called in times gone by, were raised by hand.
During Tudor times pastry had evolved from the Medieval inedible crust -that was there only to hold a filling- to sweet and savoury pastry to enjoy as a part of a dish. Eggs and butter or suet were beginning to be used making the pastry more refined and giving the cook the opportunity to be inventive with fillings as well as with decoration. If you look at Renaissance paintings especially by the Flemish and Dutch masters, you will notice the pies who are depicted on the tables as dramatic centerpieces, sometimes wildly decorated with stuffed swans or geese resting on top.

But it isn’t the only change, the Tudor court wanted to show their worldliness employing Florentine sculptors and painters for great artistic commissions, decorating royal palaces and most likely even influencing the kitchen. I can’t but help to see the striking recemblance between an Italian ‘Crostata di marmellata‘. In 1570 Bartolomeo Scappi, an Italian cook mentioned the different recipes for pastry in his book, it would take 30 years before a guide like that was published in Britain. ‘Delightes for Ladies‘ was published in 1602 but Gervase Markham’s book a decade later would provide a much easier to follow set of recipes.
It always pleases me to find links between Italian and British cookery, these are my two favourite cuisines and I feel there are a lot of things linking the two together, not only in dishes but also in philosophy.

Prune tarts bring back memories of my childhood. Normally only eaten on Ash Wednesday in my home town Antwerp, prune tart would be on our sunday breakfast table quite regularly. Our local bakery used to have the best prune tarts in sizes big and small and my mother used to buy a small one for me because she knew it is one of the few sweet things I truly enjoy.

For these prune tarts I tried to recreate a tart I had tasted years ago. As it is my favourite of tarts I can be very specific in how it should taste, the pastry can’t be too sweet and has to be very thin making the prunes the star of the show filling your mouth with a soft puree full of subtle almondy flavour and coloring your tongue black. The pastry would merely be there to encase the prune puree and to give an extra texture and buttery bite to the tart but it is very important to get it right. You can’t have the prune puree without the crust, they are entwined.

I called upon an old friend I used to visit in her bakery when I should be out partying. Now living a sunny life in Thailand running her own shop in baking equipment she gave me her recipe for the pastry, remembering her prune tart I gave it a go.
Although I prefer Gervase Markham’s method of slowly cooking the prunes in the oven while you are baking a bread or stewing a tough cut of meat, one can easily -like he states as in his book – cook them on a moderate fire. However when stewed slowly in the oven, you do get a more intense flavour so next time you are cooking a Sussex Stewed steak, pop some prunes in the oven as well.

What do you need (makes 4, 15 cm wide tarts)

For the pastry (I halved the recipe, for 1kg of flour use 5 eggs)

500g organic plain white flour
250g raw cane sugar
250 g cold butter, unsalted and cubed
3 organic eggs
vanilla, half a teaspoon
1g baking powder

For the filling

750 g dried prunes
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons of Muscovado sugar or Molasses

Equipment

4, 15 cm tart tins
rolling pin
greaseproof paper

Method

Combine the butter and the sugars using a wooden spatula or spoon until the butter is covered in sugar
Now start to add the flour cup by cup carefully combining the mixture with a blunt knife, cutting the butter into smaller bits to combine. The mixture looks like breadcrumbs now.
Add the eggs and the baking powder, and use one of your hands to work it in. At this point it is easy to turn the dough out on a clean working surface.
Knead until you get a smooth dough, but be careful not to overwork the dough so as soon as all combined well shape it into a brick and wrap it it cling film.
Chill the pastry overnight
Soak the prunes overnight in water, just covering them

The next day…

If your prunes have stones, remove them and try to remove some of the kernels using a nut cracker. The stones are hard to crack so never mind if you can’t get them out. It doesn’t make the tart any less delicious.
If you do get a couple (4 or 5) out, add them to the prunes to stew, they will give a wonderful almond flavour.
Bring the prunes to the boil with the soaking water, the two tablespoons of muscovado or molasse sugar, the lemon juice and let simmer for about 30 minutes or until the water is reduced on a medium flame.
Discart the water, let it cool, remove the kernels if you had them, and when cooled puree with a blender.
If the puree is too runny at this point, put it back on the hob to reduce a bit further. If you had to do this, let it cool again before further use. It will become more solid when cooled.

When the prunes have cooled

Butter your tart tins and dust with flour
Cut of a piece of your cold pastry, roughly the size of your tart tin. It will be very solid so start by pressing it down with a rolling pin on a generously floured work surface.
Transfer your pastry to a piece of greaseproof paper
Sprinkle some flour over the pastry and start rolling it until it is about 3 mm thick, when the pastry sticks to the rolling pin, add flour, keep adding it so the pastry stays dry.
Check if your pastry isn’t sticking to your greaseproof paper, cut off the extra pastry so you remain with a circle that is just a few cm larger than your tart tin.
Gently turn the pastry over the tart tin and let it sink into the shape.
Now use your fingers to set the pastry into the tart tin and crimp the edges.
Don’t overwork the pastry as it should remain cool.
Transfer the tart pastry to the fridge while you do the other 3

Preheat your oven to 160° C

For the lattice top*

Roll out your pastry to 3 mm as stated above
Cut 1 cm wide strips, dust them well with flour.
On a sheet of greaseproof paper -dusted with flour- create the lattice as shown below
Fill your pastry with the prune filling
Gently but quickly turn over the lattice top to fit on top of the tart
Now you will most likely need to adjust the straps of pastry so it is straight. Don’t worry, if it is your first time it will either look horrible or you will be in luck and it will be quite straight from the first attempt.
Crimp the edges of the straps, cool in the fridge and proceed the same way with the other 3 tarts
Put in the middle of the preheated oven for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until nicely brown, no less than an hour for sure.
Leave the tarts to cool in their tins completely before serving

* If creating the strapwork seems daunting, why not cut out shapes with a cookie cutter to place on top of the prune puree, it can look just as nice!

You will most likely have leftover pastry, wrap it in clingfilm, bag it and freeze it for when you need it. Always keep prunes in your larder for when you are using your oven for a long time, you can bake the tarts at the same time and get more out of your energy usage.

Enjoy!

You might also like
Cobnut and apple tart
Blaeberry pie

Cobnut and apple tart

27th November 2012 by Regula 8 Comments

I’m very happy to announce, I’ve been asked to write for Great British Chefs
Here I am, a Belgian girl writing about Britain and British food and I am really proud that they have taken me under the Great British Chefs’ wing.

I didn’t have to think twice when I was asked to write about something for a mostly British audience, recently I’ve been quite obsessed with Kentish cobnuts and I have many more recipes up my sleeve.

When
I think of my beloved Kent, apples, cobnuts, cherries and hops are the
four things that define this county for me. They have moulded the
landscape with their orchards and plats and have influenced the kitchens
and culture.

I
discovered Kentish cobnuts on a late summers day when they are sold
fresh in their green husks. The kernels are then juicy and resemble a
chestnut flavour, yet more delicate. When autumn arrives the cobnuts are
ripened, the husks, then turned brown, are removed and they look more
like the hazelnut we generally know. Now they are dried and referred to
as Golden Cobnuts. The flavour of the nut has developed while ripening,
and has gone from fresh and juicy to an intense nutty flavour. When
stored dry they keep till christmas. The Kentish cobnut is larger and
more ovoid shaped than a hazelnut and also has a different and slightly
more intense flavour.

Cobnuts
generally grow in Kent, where the variety the ‘Kentish Cob’ was planted
in the 19th century by a Mr Lambert of Goudhurst.
They
have however been around since Tudor times and were but revived by the
Victorians who considered them to be a delicacy. There are more
varieties of cobnuts but as Kent has historically been the main county
producing cobnuts, the term Kentish cob is often used generally for
every variety of cobnut grown in Britain.
Cobnut
orchards are known as ‘plats’ and the nuts are harvested by hand by
workmen called ‘nutters’. In the old days cobnuts were also sometimes
picked by hop pickers coming down from London as cobnuts and hops both
ripen at the same time. The disappearance of the Hop pickers roughly
corresponds with the decline of the cobnut plats.

The
last few years there’s been a revival in cobnut growing as well as in
hop growing as many people are opting to buy British and the growing
amount of micro breweries are showing interest in Kentish hops again.
Cherry orchards are being planted once more and apples are still plenty
and taking over the British greengrocers.
I
had Kent on my mind when my sack of golden cobnuts arrived and I was
also in need of a cake or tart that is not only comforting and cosy on a
dreary autumn day but also a bit more nutritious than your average
tart.
This
cobnut and apple tart is something between a cake and a tart, I am
using spelt flour and lots of cobnuts and apples so this tart will not
only give you your dose of sweets but also energy.

For the recipe head over to the website of Great British Chefs here >

Special thanks to Farnell Farm for the cobnuts! www.farnellfarm.co.uk/

Blaeberry pie – Going back in time

29th July 2012 by Regula 24 Comments

The first time I baked this pie it felt like magic when I took it out of the oven.
Not only has this dish been around for centuries, I got to taste a bit of Britain’s beautiful food heritage. There are quite a few cookery books around that were written more than hundreds of years ago and are still influencing cooks today.
Like in politics, we are supposed to learn from our history. So whenever I am cooking a dish I research it to find out how it was prepared by the Elizabethans, Victorians, Edwardians and learn about how tastes changed and some things just stayed the same.

I am eternally grateful to Florence White who wrote the book ‘Good things in England’. Born in 1863 she was the first ever freelance journalist specializing in food and English cooking in particular.
For the creation of the book she went out looking for traditional British recipes that were handed down in families for generations. Some of the regional recipes that she found or had been sent by her readers, dated back as far as the 14th century.
In 1931 she founded the ‘English Folk Cookery Association’ and later she set up a cookery and domestic training school in Fareham.

Another interesting read about English traditional cooking are the books from Jane Grigson, some of the recipes in her books are from or inspired by Isabella Beeton, the author of the book ‘Mrs Beetons’s Book of Household Management‘ in 1861.
Both White and Beeton’s books influenced the work of Elizabeth David and so do we go on to keep British food heritage alive.

This pie is inspired by Jane Grigson‘s Blaeberry pie from the 70s.
These days puff pastry is more popular for fruit pies but in the old days Shortcrust pastry would have been used.
I am not a big fan of puff pastry and when I read about Flaky Shortcrust pastry in Beeton’s book I thought I would give it a try. The recipe was very similar to my recipe for savoury pie pastry.
The pie worked best with the Flaky Shortcrust pastry, I added a pinch of sugar to the dough and used sparkling water instead of still water.

Blaeberries are known in England by various of local names, these include Bilberries, Wimberries and myrtle blueberries. In Ireland they are known as Fraughan and are traditionally picked on Fraughan sunday on the last sunday of july.
Bilberries were gathered by the Gaelic on the feast of Lughnasadh which is celebrated on the first of August. The Bilberries were gathered to bake pies and make wine.
Lughnasadh is a harvest celebration, a time when food is plenty and has to be preserved for the more lean days ahead in the year.
I am fascinated by these feasts which all celebrate food, fertility and life. Things were so simple and so straight forward. People were looking forward to the first berries and now we can buy them all year long. We are losing our connection with the seasons…

By chance while I write this, it’s the last sunday of July. So this pie is for the harvest and the start of a whole new chapter in my life… but more on that at a later date.

What do you need
a 22 cm pie dish, I used enamelware

For the pastry
this recipe is for a pie in a 22 cm pie dish, including the bottom part, I only use the top for this pie so you will have some leftover dough to freeze or make little pies with

• 250 g plain white flour
• 150 g cold butter
• 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 100ml ice cold sparklingwater
• pinch of sugar
• 1 egg white for egg washing the pastry

You can do this with a food processor, but I like to do it by hand.

Mix flour and sugar.
Finely slice half of the butter finely into the flour, shake the bowl so the butter is covered in flour.
Use a round knife to cut the butter into smaller pieces until the mixture resembles crumbs. You can also use a fork to do this.
Put in the fridge for 30 minutes
Now add the other half of the butter and do the same thing, cutting the butter into smaller pieces.
Add the lemon juice to the water
Start adding the water to the flour and butter, bring the dough together.
Make sure you don’t over handle the dough, when it gets sticky, refrigerate again.
The dough needs to stay cool.
When you’ve managed to bring the dough together into a large lump, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Now prepare your pie filling

For the filling

• 500 g blueberries
• 85 g cane sugar (you can add 100g if you like things very sweet)
• 1 level tablespoon of cornflour (cornstarch)

Mix the sugar with the cornflour
Add a layer of berries to the pie dish
Add a layer of sugar and cornflour mixture and keep on doing this until the pie dish is slightly heaped with fruit.

When the dough has rested enough.
Preheat your oven to 220°

Roll out your dough on a flowered surface.
It should be half a cm thick.
Line the pastry over the pie dish filled with fruit and trim the edges.
Give the pastry a generous egg wash
score the middle of the pastry with a sharp knife so the steam can get out.

Put the pie in the bottom part of the oven for 15 min at 220°
After 15 min reduce the heat to 180° and bake for 20-30 minutes

When ready, leave it to rest for 20 minutes so the fruit can set a bit.

Enjoy with a dollop of clotted cream, double cream or ice cream.

The magic that is opening the lid of a pie and discovering color…

Please leave a comment, I enjoy reading them

You might also like:
Chicken and tarragon pie
Victoria sandwich cake for Queenie

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