What do you mean I haven't posted since the 9th October!? Sorry folks! I just don't know where the time has gone!
Anyway, I'll be making up for it today! I'm still catching up on the Great British Bake Off Series 2 (I still don't know who one) after coming back from my holiday to Mexico. Did I tell you that we went to Mexico!? Well that will have to be another blog post!.
I was watching one of the technical challenges that Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry had set, and Paul demonstrated how to make homemade mini pork pies with quails eggs. I'm not really a lover of shop brought pork pies. If they are there at a picnic, then I will eat them, but the ones that he made looked amazing! Full of pork and bacon, and a lovely little quails egg.
So, since the clocks went back today and Mr P is at work, I thought I'd give them a go. Mr P wanted me to make them... even though he's a veggie as he wants to eat the pastry. Strange boy.
I followed the recipe that was on the BBC website and there are some changes in comparison to him doing it on the BBC tv show... like - don't put them in the fridge to set until they are really cool as warm pork and the fridge do not mix! YOU'LL GET FOOD POISONING! Thought that one was quite important.
I've never been very good at pastry, and this recipes calls for a warm pastry and I tell you what, even a simple pleb like me even managed it and it turned out amazing! I was supposed to leave the pies set until tomorrow, but I gathered that since I made them soooo early this morning, that a little sneaky peak after 5 hours in the fridge would be ok.... and they were. What a delight to cut through the golden pastry, through my little quails egg, and smile from ear to ear and what I had created! Luckily I had some of Mother P's pickled onions in the larder to go with them from last year!
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| Ingredients at the go, apart from the pork and quails eggs, the rest was store cupboard ingredients. I actually had the lard in the fridge ready to make some bird feeders for the winter! |
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| The filling: pork loin, streaky bacon, onion, flat leaf parsley, seasoning. I actually used 450g of pork and 150g of bacon as my muffin tin is rather on the large size. |
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| Don't worry when your pastry goes firm when you add the filling. The egg wash makes the edges soft for crimping. The egg is waiting to be buried in filling! |
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| Ready to go in the oven! |
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| Perfect! |
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| Think I need to pack the meat a bit tighter next time, but I am really pleased with the result and they taste great! |
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| Serve with pickled onions and wash it down with some cider! |
Next up today was the Christmas Cake. Now, I normally follow an old M&S recipe for my cake, but this year I fancied doing something different after being inspired by Kirstie Allsopp on her new Channel 4 show Kirstie's Handmade Britain. Last week she baked an amazing fruit cake which had loads of tropical fruit and stem ginger in and I thought that I'd give it a go! I just happened to have ordered her book to accompany the series from The Book People for £10.00. Winner! It is a lovely book if you are into home crafting.
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| Ingredients at the ready! |
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| The tropical fruit after being stewed with cider. My mix contains papaya, pineapple, mango, cherries, sultanas, dates, stem ginger and mixed peel . |
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| Ready for the oven... see you in three hours! I also wrapped the outer cake tin with news paper and after 90minutes I put some paper on top to stop the top of the cake browning too much. Watch this space! |
As we speak, the cake is in the oven, slowly cooking and it smells great! I will keep you posted on it as it needs feeding with brandy before I decorate it for Christmas, but I can tell you that the cake mixture tasted great! I love licking out the bowl!
I also whipped up some pear and lemon butter as I was given a stack load of pears this week along with some windfall apples. Mmm, what to do with them!? Chutney anyone!
Cheerio,
Nic xx
