Banoffee pie

 Why don't we have this on the blog? Because it's too easy?  I don't know. 

I usually made Banoffee with a blind-baked sweetcrust pastry base, then two tins of the caramel (or one, if you're not so sweet-toothed), then sliced layered bananas all over the spread toffee, then Chantilly (or just plain whipped cream). 

(Sweetcrust: about 250g plain flour, 125g butter (cold, cut up), 100g icing sugar, 1 egg, sometimes some lemon zest, splash of ice water or so if needed, pinch of salt. Or can decrease the sugar, replace the egg with water, use caster instead of icing, but whatever you do make sure you touch that butter as little as possible and crumb it into the flour and bind quickly. Also useful to roll out between cling film or baking parchment: it's always floppy.) 

However Flash made it the other day and instead of baked crust, used a biscuit and butter base, and frankly I think the nutty flavour went better with the caramel and banana. Plus it's even easier. 

As a side note, if you don't have access to tinned caramel, you can boil a tin of sweetened condensed milk for 45 minutes or so and it'll turn into caramel. I used to do this because condensed milk is about a quarter of the price of caramel. Now the part I can't afford is the calories on my tummy more than the pennies from the pocket. 

Italian Roll

Well that's why the vote was to call it anyway - the alternative title was 'Long Pies'. In any case it wasn't an unqualified success but I'll note it down here just to remember. Despite two 'do again' votes I think the dish can't make up its mind whether to be a lasagne or a pie, and if faced with the choice of this, lasagne or pie no-one would pick this one, so I think we have a loser.

So it's a sheet of puff pastry per 'long pie', layered with thickened mince sauce, then thickened spinach puree, then a layer of grated cheddar cheese, then rolled swiss-roll style, then baked. You don't get much of a roll in there. The pastry pouffed OK (which I was worried about with all the moisture) but it just lacked lustre a bit, even though the meat was tender and tasty and that bit of cheese and the crispiness of the puff pastry was all a pleasant combo.

Didn't take a photo. Sorry.

'Greg' the Apple Pie

This is a SERIOUS apple pie, suitable for consumption by Henry 8th on a picnic. Made in LARGE individual ramekins.

For two Gregs, use about four medium sized apples. Peel, core and cut up reasonably small, sugar and spice to taste, microwave until they're considerably reduced in size and soft.

Make up some sweetcrust pastry with 150g of flour.

Strain the juices out of the cooked apples and use them to microwave half a handful (or however much you feel like) of mixed fruit in them until plumped up and delicious. Return the mixed fruit with any remaining juice to the apple.

Make up a small 'custard' with one egg, touch of sugar and a splash of milk. Add to the apples, reserving a smidge to glaze the top.

Add half a handful of ground almonds. Combine.

Grease two large individual ramekins and line them with pastry. Fill with the apple mix, lattice the top. Glaze with the reserved egg mix.

Put in a baking tray to catch the drips and bake on 180-200 until golden and bubbling. Take to your picnic spot still in the ramekin to avoid squashing. They should come out nicely, like a pork pie.

Square Pies

These are actually Pithiviers but we like to think inside the box, not in the round. Actually we just couldn't be bothered to cut the pastry out.

Get a nice hunk of meat suitable for pressure cooking (or braising, if you're being traditional) and cook the hell out of it. I did it with a leg of lamb in the pressure cooker - beautiful. Initial cook with a bunch of celery, an onions, salt and plenty of peppercorns. Oh and a garlic head cut in half.

When it's soft, take the meat out and shred. Strain the liquid, push through veggie goodness, return to pan and reduce the liquid until it goes syrupy. Because it was lamb and very fatty, I put a step in there where I cooled it down initially and skimmed some fat off. Well worth doing.

Return shredded meat to the liquid and if necessary give it another pressuring. Fry up (separately) whatever veggie flavourings you're putting in. I used slivered onions and red peppers, caramelized.

Mix the whole lot together, and if you can let it cool that's great.

Lay out your puff pastry sheets, cut each square into fours. If you can't be bothered to cut one smaller and one larger, you'll have to trim the edges at the end but that's not too onerous.

Get a ring mould (or if you've got a square one go for it) that leaves at least a 1 inch rim in the pastry and mound the filling into it on to of one of the pastry squares. Remove ring. Put another pastry square on top and tuck down the sides. At this point you'll have to trim the sides because the top will be shorter than the bottom (unless you've been clever beforehand and cut out a larger one for the top). Do so. Make indents with a fork around the edges to seal / make pretty. Egg wash the top of the pastry. Bake on hot until beautifully golden.

I found these particular ones were beautiful served with pureed pumpkin, with lots of butter and cinnamon sugar in it. Serves as a kind of sauce. Big hit with the kids.