Goodbye to blueberry pie

I've resisted posting this debacle as if in not admitting it publicly I can deny the existence of the ill fated pastry. The pastry which I cleverly built up in my previous post to Patti Lupone Gypsy like proportions (not that she's huge, but the hype and all that was) only to epically fail. Like Carrie, or Lestat. Yes, they're musical theatre references all the way, but the subject matter is still pastry. Or, as it has been known in this house 'pastry of DOOM'. I was not happy. I may have sulked. Pouted even.

Anyway to start at the very beginning (It being a very good place to start and all that) it seemed like it was a possible success, I had read everything Nigella and Delia had to say on the matter and made several key decisions:

• I was going to find and use half Trex and half butter


• I had located a step to stand on to sift from on high (I kid you not, I'm only 5 feet 4 tall)


• I wasn't going to make the pastry by hand; the last two weekends have bucked the trend of the summer thus far and been full of sunshine and flowers. Taking this into account I decided that the food processor was the way forward.
  

Making the pastry was surprisingly easy, it did exactly as Nigella said it would in the How to Eat recipe for rich shortcrust:

120g flour

60g butter, cold and cut into 1cm dice

1 egg yolk

1 tsp orange juice

However, I made one small error. Tiny really. In most of my cooking it would have barely warranted a second thought. Here it was, well fatal really. I don't have a pie dish (20cm deep or otherwise), flatmate doesn't have a pie dish. So I improvised (all those Tuesday nights at the theatre by the side of Leicester Square kind of paid off after all) and used a terracotta baking dish that we use for pretty much everything. And no I didn't think to measure it. Yes, I know that now.

I had tossed the fruit in some demerera sugar, and orange juice and added in the blackberries. Being actually not a fan of a lot of pastry (ironic I know) I had decided to just use a pastry top and so set to rolling out the pastry to roughly the size of the dish. Biggish? My lunch date had turned up by now and I was trying not to a) swear or b) cry whilst trying to simultaneously roll pastry out and work out if I could make it to Morrison's and back with a shop bought apple and blackberry pie.* Amazingly I had a bolt of genius and realised that the pastry wasn't going to stick to the pie dish without some other pastry to adhere to. Feeling slightly smug I used the trimmings on the edge of the dish and stuck the other pastry to it, dusting that with caster sugar as directed by Ni-bloody-gella. I've still not lost my temper or wept publicly. The pastry on the other hand clearly felt the tension seeping out of my body and cracked under the pressure. But I pressed on nontheless, and put it in the oven.

Meanwhile the lunch date and I retired to the garden to eat our unseasonal Shepherds pie (fortunately this was a hit and we both required tomato ketchup - it's destiny) which during the planning period had not been seasonal enough and possibly needed extra stodge to provide enough body heat to get us through the day. However, being English and it being a general return to one's childhood we both fell happily on my old faithful Good Housekeeping recipe (circa 1992, possibly earlier)

And back to the pastry... It was cooked, and dished up with some yummy vanilla icecream to go with. But I say dished up as slicing wasn't possible. As soon as you touched said pastry it disintegrated - as did I (internally still). I managed to sort of shovel a portion into both bowls and if you mixed it in with the filling it kind of worked. If you tried to eat it separately it was all kinds of wrong, and should have been wrapped around a sausage of some description. All credit in that it was as hoped short and light, but it tasted wrong, and really that's what matters isn't it? I spoke to one's oracle in such situations (not actually being related to Nigella or Delia of course that's my Mother) and she is adamant that unless the filling was particularly tart, like rhubarb then a rich shortcrust would have been fine. And lunch date agreed. I still maintain it needed some sweetness to it.

I'll be honest with you, as always, I haven't braved pastry again. But I have purchased (in a decidedly restrained Lakeland order) the following pan for next time. For there shall be a next time and I shall beat the demon that is pastry. *fingers crossed and all that*

There was some success to the weekend, around the pastry disasters I did get to meet Scott Alan the composer of some of my favourite music, Jenna Leigh Green (not just Libby in Sabrina, also an amazing Ivy in Bare) and Eden Espinosa - another Elphaba. We visited Dress Circle (the spiritual home of Musical Theatre in London) for a signing and chat with Scott, Jenna and Eden. The latter two were entirely unexpected, and a delightful surprise. Scott's singing was, as I expected, beautiful - although I can now no longer listen to Goodnight without crying as I just wish it had been around when we were losing my Dad, and his chat was at once hysterical, fairly filthy and so open. The concert on Sunday night had some amazing performances (although no one can live up to Jonthan's interpretation of Now in my mind), Never Never Land being a real favourite of mine. I don't know why but there's just something about that song that really resonates with me. And Goodnight reduced me to tears. Again.

*Answers are: a) not out loud b) decided to suck it up and hope for the best.

Seasons change...

Well let's face it, summer was little more than a flash in the pan; not that I'm bitter at having had the whole summer off (admittedly ill, but that's not the point) and the weather being almost entirely lousy. Nope. Not one bit. At all. In the slightest. But to add more to the misery, my whole hope for a season of mist and mellow fruitfulness seems to have gone out the window and we seem to have gone straight into biting cold, the only solution for which being tea - lots of it, and of course home-made soups and bread.

Never one to shirk my responsibilities, the first batch of this season's lifechanging soup was made (I really should write to Skye Gyngell, I am practically, single handedly marketing her book(s) for her!) and devoured, quite promptly. The frozen batch of the salty green sludge is being worked it's way through steadily, and the wonderful breadmaker is back in action at least weekly. Hoorah for carbs I say. Although having managed to drop a dress size purely down to stress and ill health maybe not too many carbs. Or too much cheese. Mind you if this weather keeps up I'm going to be almost entirely hidden under layers of thermals and fleeces so I probably have a little grace.

At the start of the year I declared (with foolish amounts of enthusiasm) that this was the year I was going to tackle pastry. Haunted by the memory of the Home Economics teacher from hell I have been convinced that pastry and I are not a match made in heaven. Well I think her words were along the lines of heavy and pointless, at which point she put it in the bin in front of the rest of the class. I nearly wept. In fact, knowing me, I probably did. So to put Mrs Carter in her place this weekend I will be mastering pastry. And going to a Scott Alan signing and *fingers crossed* gig. Who is Scott Alan? I hear you cry.... well fortunately for you, I have managed to locate a video of Stephanie J Block singing Never Never Land which is, it has to be said, one of the most beautiful songs I have heard in a long while. It's sentiment, along with it's melody take me away from the realms of pain, of being permanently cold, and hating having to work in a basement, and allow me to fly, far away... Ladies, and gentleman I give you (another Elphaba) Stephanie J Block.

So after our regular break for musical theatre. Come on, admit it, you would miss it if it weren't there... Well I would, and it's my blog! I wanted to go back to pastry. If I tell the truth, which I try to, I'm terrified. I'm cooking for someone I like for the first time, and although they don't know that they're going to be getting this, they are. I have consulted both Nigella (How to Eat) and Delia (old school mind you, none of this frozen mashed potato business). Both women agree on needing to use lard aswell as butter, and both are comfortingly reassuring. To be honest, I'm currently favouring Nigella from an empathetic perspective as she declares herself intially terrified of the stuff. Both How to Eat, and How to Cook (book one) provide simple instructions for shortcrust pastry, and include helpful tips such as:

• Put the measured out fat and flour in the freezer first (Nigella)


• Use the food processor (also Nigella, although I'm not entirely sure what blade she means)


• Acidulate your water/ water and egg yolk mixture (Nigella)


• Get as much air as possible in the pastry by seiving your flour from on high (Delia... mental note to self... find the step)


• Keep cool, yourself and the kitchenas this stops teh fat becoming oily and the pastry too crumbly (Delia) So that sounds ideal for the weather, I'll open a window and wear thermals then


• Short means light and crisp. (Thank you Delia, I never actually had a clue about this I just got away with smiling and nodding... for thirty one years)

However, unhelpfully, neither woman has a recipe for apple and blackberry pie. For that, I've turned - surprisingly in my mind at least - to Jamie Oliver courtesy of Jamie's Dinners. As I would have expected the recipe is no nonsense, straight talking (none of Nigella's empathy about running away and hiding behind the sofa when faced with a recipe that requires pastry) but one I think I can do. So, I guess now it's a case of finding a pie dish, buying some lard, opening the window, donning the thermals, and watching this space... You do realise if I can do this you will be subjected to (entirely ironic) excerpts from Sweeney Todd?

Oh and I'm also making Shepherd's pie, to a recipe I have memorised from a Good Housekeeping cookbook we had when I was about 14. But I'll post that when done.