Friday 29 July 2011

Baking with Bob - apple and strawberry pies and savoury mince pie

Decided for tea last night as I had some apples left from Monday and I had taken a portion of cooked mince out the freezer ready for tea I would be creative with them.

So I decided to further my pastry experimentation and make two different types of pies using two different types of pastry, as last weeks apple pies were edible but the pastry defiantly needed refining.

So for the savoury I made a pastry using atora suet, not something I normally use, normally use the vegetable one but it is a higher percentage gluten flour,  but bought some to try.  It is not gluten free as it contains normal flour, but this can be sieved out and just the suet used. So I took 100g suet (sieved weight), 200g doves farm flour and a teaspoon of xanthan gum added salt and pepper and some chopped herbs from the garden, mixed with approx 80ml water to a useable dough, you might need to adjust your water depending on you flour, rolled it out and popped it on top of the mince that I had put into a baking tin. It did break when I attempted to lift it but I wasnt very gentle....you might want to be.
Popped it into the oven, took approx 20mins at 180c to cook.
It was edible enough when cooked, rather fatty for my liking, not the sort of thing I would usually make. Light enough and not solid and bitter like the last time.


Next I decide on apple ppies as I had apple left from Monday and for all we ate Mondays pies they were not the best once cooled or the next day. Now most recipes I have found for gluten free pastry use either mashed potato, carrot or sweet potato, but I decided I would use a conventional pastry recipe and see how it turned out,

I sieved 200g doves farm flour into a bowl along with 1 teaspoon xanthan gum, I then added 125g of pure dairy free soya spread,50 g of brown sugar  (100g is normal but I found this wrong on Monday), rubbed till it resembed breadcrumbs and mixed with approx 80ml water.

rolled out in between 2 sheets of cling film and cut out my circles, placed in the tin and added apple and a strawberry to each one, popped on the lids, brushed with soya milk, sprinkled on a little sugar...dropped the rest of the tub on the floor.... and cooked. for approx 15 mins at 180c.

These were much more pleasant than Mondays, the pastry was light and airy, nice texture and structure and even cold they are soft and pliable.

getting ready for the oven

cooked and looking lovely.

Im not the worlds neatest baker, and they look a bit messy in the tin, but your not eating the tin so why worry.
Maybe it was the xanthan gum as a gluten substitute that made these more pleasant than Mondays which didnt have that added.

I know when my bakig is normal tasting as oh will eat it, well he went back 4 times last night for a pie...so they are well worth your making.

1 comment:

  1. Lovely jubbly pies. They look delicious. Thanks for joining the Recipe Shed. I'm going to run it every Thursday, so please come back and share again. Look out for Twitter alerts for the next theme. Many thanks. Keith aka Reluctant Housedad

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