Cakes & Bakes: 7 best fruit pie recipes

There isn’t a much better way to round off an autumn or winter evening meal than a warming, filling, fruit pie. We love a slice with an afternoon coffee too.

Here are 7 of our favourite fruit pie recipes – they always go down a treat served with a dollop of cream, ice cream or custard.

Plum pie

I first made this pie prior to having a garden with a plum tree that produces abundantly. This recipe will therefore be revisited each year in September and October when our fruit is ripe and ready to be picked.

Vegan lemon meringue pie

This is a lovely pie… you’ll enjoy it whether you’re a vegan or not! The ‘meringue’ is made using aquafaba, the water left over after cooking chickpeas or other white beans. You whip it up and, as if by magic, you’ve got something that looks just like whisked egg whites.

Blueberry pie

I love blueberries! I buy them frozen in bags and pop them into porridge, smoothies, my home-made yoghurt… and pies. Blueberries are considered by some to be a super-food, they contain all manner of vitamins and other health-boosting chemical compounds.

Rhubarb & berry shortcake pie

This recipe is like a cross between a pie, a crumble and a biscuit. It’s lovely straight out of the oven with a dollop of clotted cream. It’s just as good cold and is very good as a picnic or al fresco dessert; it wraps up easily and travels well.

Cherry pie

This sweet yet tart fruit pie is encased in a delicious almond pastry – the two flavour compliment each other well.

Apple & blackberry pie

As well as a plum tree, we have a number of apple trees. There are lots of blackberry bushes growing wild in the area near where we live. Apples and blackberries ripen at the same time time of year; and the two flavours are a match made in heaven. So this is a two birds, one stone kind of pie!

Luxury mince pies

Last, but not least, is something for Christmas; mince pies. I must confess, I like mince pies so much that I don’t just eat them in December. I make mincemeat that keeps in (unopened, sterilised) jars for years. A batch of these little tasty morsels can be rustled up in a flash… any time of year!

Do you have any favourite fruit pie recipes that you enjoy cooking or eating?

Cakes & Bakes: Toffee apple tarte tatin

Did you watch Bake Off this week? It was pastry week and the ‘signature bake’ was to create a savoury tarte tatin. So I used that as a bit of inspiration and decided to make a toffee apple tarte tatin. Here’s how it ‘panned’ out…

I’ve been spending the past few weeks making use of all the ripening fruit from our garden; plums, damsons and now apples. We don’t know the type of apple this is – we think it’s an ‘eater’ rather than a ‘cooker’, although it’s a bit on the tart side.

I was going to make a ‘plain’ apple tarte tatin, but I fancied a bit of extra bit of caramelisation. Sweet, gooey, sticky and chewy.

As a tarte tatin is an ‘upside-down’ cake, you want to lay the fruit on the base of the pan in an attractive pattern.

I could have done with making a little bit more pastry. I felt like I was stretching it across the top to thinly. But hey, it’s a rustic tart, a couple of cracks didn’t detract from the splendid taste and flavour.

Slice & serve with thick cream or vanilla ice cream. We’ve really been enjoying all our recent autumnal desserts; warming, hearty, filling and delicious; what will next week bring?

Click here to save the recipe to Pinterest!

Toffee apple tart tatin

2019-10-16 17:35:44

Serves 4

Cook Time

30 min

Cook Time

30 min

For the pastry

110g/4oz plain flour
50g/2oz butter, cubed (room temperature)
pinch of salt

For the toffee

25g butter
25g Demerara sugar
1tbsp golden syrup
½tsp ground cinnamon
2 large or 3 medium apples, cored, peeled and sliced into segments

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If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it

Instructions

Pre-heat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4

For the pastry

Sift the flour and salt together into a medium-sized mixing bowl
Using your fingertips, lightly and gently rub the cubes of butter into the flour. When the mixture looks uniformly crumbly, sprinkle a tablespoon of cold water evenly over the top
Using a round-bladed knife, repeatedly cut through the mixture, which will begin to form larger lumps. Bring the mixture together with your hands to form a smooth ball of dough.
Cool the ball of pastry, in a ziplock bag, in the fridge for half an hour

For the toffee

In a heavy-bottomed, cast iron skillet pan, melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally
Sprinkle in the cinnamon and stir to combine
Arrange the apple segments into an attractive pattern on top of the toffee mixture in the skillet pan

To bring together

Roll out the pastry into a 1cm thick round, with a slightly larger diameter than your skillet
Cover the apples with the pastry, gently pressing it down and tucking it down the sides
Cook for 30-40 minutes or until the pastry begins to brown
Cool for a couple of minutes and loosen the edges with a sharp knife if necessary
Flip over, apple-side-up, on to a serving plate

H is for Home Harbinger http://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Cheesy baked bean tartlets

I recently saw a picture somewhere (I can’t remember where) of little cheesy baked bean tartlets and thought they looked delicious.

I started by making a basic, savoury shortcrust pastry. After that, all that’s needed is a small can of baked beans and a little bit of grated cheddar. Only 4 ingredients – not counting the pinch of salt and tablespoon of water.

Just before I put them into the oven, Justin said something like, “Aren’t they getting any pie lids?”. As they’re cheesy baked bean tartlets, I wasn’t planning on topping them. However, I has some leftover pastry so re-rolled some and cut out four extra rounds.

The tartlets (and the mini-pies for, that matter) were lovely with a little smear of tewkesbury mustard that we got from Tracklements.

These tartlets are really easy to make – you can even buy ready-made pastry if preferred. They’d be perfect for a picnic or served at a buffet or children’s party.

Save my recipe to Pinterest by clicking here

Cheesy baked bean tartlets

2019-05-15 13:50:15

Yields 12

Cook Time

12 min

Cook Time

12 min

Ingredients

200g plain flour
pinch of fine salt
100g cold butter, cubed
1-2 tbsp cold water
(small) 220g tin baked beans
50g mature cheddar cheese, grated

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If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it

Instructions

Put the flour, salt and butter into a food processor and pulse about a dozen times until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs
Add a tablespoon of water and pulse again until small lumps begin to form. Add another tablespoon if necessary
Tip the mixture out on to a cross made from two lengths of cling film. Bring the four ends of cling film together and squeeze and pat down the mixture to form a dough. Chill in the fridge for an hour.
Preheat the oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
Grease a bun tin
Remove the chilled pastry from the fridge and roll out on a lightly floured work surface
Using a round pastry cutter slightly larger than the holes in the bun tin, cut out circles of pastry and carefully and evenly place them over the holes (If you'll be adding lids, brush around the edge with a little milk
Spoon about a teaspoonful of baked beans into each followed by a generous pinch of grated cheddar (brush the edge of the underside of each lid before carefully pressing it down on to the edge of the lower pastry round. Brush the top of the lid with a little milk or egg wash)
Cook for 12-15 minutes in the middle of the oven until the pastry has browned slightly
Remove from the oven and allow the tartlets to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes before removing

H is for Home Harbinger http://hisforhomeblog.com/

Cakes & Bakes: Nutty treacle tart

This week, I realised that we have lots of bags of nuts coming to their use by date. I think we were given most of them as Christmas presents last year – and, more than likely, we’ll be receiving even more in a few weeks time.

I needed to use them pronto and I’d seen a nut-filled Nigella recipe a week ago that looked tasty. She calls it pecan-plus pie; an Anglicised version of the American pecan pie. I didn’t have any pecans in my nut hoard, so I’ve rechristened mine, nutty treacle tart.

I wasn’t too sure about the pastry case when I was making it; plain flour, vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. It looked very oily when the dough came together and was being pressed into the flan dish. I needn’t have worried though, it turned out perfectly fine – crumbly and biscuity.

The treacle sauce is sweet and unctuous but not sickly. One thing I’d do if making this nutty treacle tart again, however, is roughly chop the larger nuts. The Brazils were a bit large when trying to cut the tart into slices and also when spooning bits into my mouth!

Nigella’s instructions are to bake the tart for 40 minutes at 180ºC. After spending that length of time in the oven, my tart was still quite liquid and (thanks to my clear glass flan dish) I could see the pastry still had a ‘soggy bottom’. I’d suggest upping the oven temperature a bit or cooking it for a little longer… or both; just keep checking on in it as it bakes.

Serve it (I prefer it cold) with a dollop of whipped cream or crème fraîche.

Click here to pin the recipe to Pinterest

Nutty treacle tart

2018-11-28 15:36:42

Serves 12

Cook Time

45 min

Cook Time

45 min

Ingredients

225g/8oz plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
125g/oz vegetable oil
60ml/2fl oz full fat milk
150g/5¼oz golden syrup
100g/3½oz soft butter
200g/7oz soft light brown sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
350g/12⅓oz mixed nuts
3 large eggs

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If you don’t have Buy Me a Pie! app installed you’ll see the list with ingredients right after downloading it

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/350ºF/gas mark 4
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, oil and milk to form a rough dough
Tip it out into a 25cm /10" diameter flan dish, and press the dough evenly into the base and up the
sides of the dish, slightly coming up over the top if possible. Put it into the freezer
Melt the golden syrup, butter and brown sugar over a lowish heat in a saucepan
Add the vanilla, stir, then take off the heat and allow it to stand and cool for 10 minutes
Remove the pastry-lined flan dish from the freezer, and arrange the mixed nuts on it
Whisk the eggs into the slightly cooled syrup until it looks like a caramel mixture, then pour it over the nuts
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes, or until the filling has set and the pastry is golden brown
Allow to cool completely before slicing and serving

By Nigella Lawson

Adapted from Nigella Christmas

H is for Home Harbinger http://hisforhomeblog.com/