Brown Sugar Peach Pie

The weather has changed slightly with a good north westerly breeze helping me get all my clothes dry but it also had me putting on a cardigan! I was adamant, after the beautiful weather we had, that I wouldn't put back on my winter clothes. But still, it is a little chilly so I needed something warm and fuzzy to fill me.

This tray bake pie was to be it and good thing too, as it felt warm and summery as soon as we started eating it. It's also a very homely pie, perfect for sharing with pots of strong tea and really suited an evening after dinner reminiscing the Irish Summer as we looked out at the return of the rain!!

A full fat, Irish Dairy butter short crust pastry keeps the peaches in place, holding in all that lovely, sticky, sweet mess. The peaches offer that perfect blend of texture to help balance out the sweet flavours of the brown sugar and bourbon. The cinnamon helps make the pie rustic, satisfying and homespun. Perfect for this time of year.

Brown Sugar Peach Pie

The Pastry:

480g plain flour

100g icing sugar

300g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing the pan)

2 large free range eggs

The Peaches:

4 cans of peach slices

125g demerara sugar

2 tbsp of bourbon

1 tsps cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 180C, 350F or Gas Mark 4.

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs. Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.

Split into two balls, one slightly larger than the other.

Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.

Add all the ingredients for “The Peaches” into a bowl and toss about until coated. Set to one side, to rest.

Grease with the extra butter, a rectangular baking tray, ideally 9x13 and about 2 inch deep.

When the balls come back out of the fridge, roll them out, the size of your tray pan. Place on rectangle of pastry into the tray and let any excess hang over the edges.

Using a slotted spoon fill the pan with the peaches, being careful not to add in any juice that may have seeped out during resting. Spread out evenly.

Cutting strips of pastry with the other rectangle layer them over the pan, pulling alternate strips back and layering the opposite direction to give a lattice effect.

Once the top has been covered over, turn in the edges of pastry that were hanging over and pinch to close. Brush the top of the pastry with the peach juices left over in the bowl, toss some demerara over the top.

Bake the whole thing in your pre heated for 25-30 minutes, until the top is golden and the juices are bubbling inside.

Leave to cool for about 15 minutes and serve warm with a big dollop of ice cream. 

Simple and delicious!!

Sure what more could you want on these not so summer days?

Lemon Tart

Pressure?

Pressure is for tyres my Mom will always say. There's no need to put yourself under pressure. But I don't heed her words and put myself under pressure is exactly what I did this month. I had read the recipe for Marco Pierre White's Lemon Tart, some time ago when I say it in Roger Pizey's book, World Class Cakes. I knew the minute it came up for choice with the Cake Slice Bakers, it would be what I picked. Having spotted it on June's list. I gave it no more thought.. until I came to bake it.

I picked the hottest day of the year ever to make this tart. Irish people don't get really great weather. We get pockets of sunshine here and there, but global warming stepped up a notch this week and we got temperatures hotter than the Mediterranean. I am not complaining about the weather (Irish people also do a lot of that!!) but merely stating that the heat put me under pressure...

Not great when you are trying to keep pastry cold!

Anyway... this tart was a pure delight! It has this light, lemon flavour that tasted so much better the following day. I did have some trouble with this tart from the start, but the spoils at the end were delicious.

During the baking process I dropped my bowl of zest into the filling bowl, resulting in this crazy splash spillage of sticky lemon filling. No process photos as a result but I do plan this again so will pop them in as soon as! The recipe also called for way more filling than was actually needed, I had a lot left over, even after the spillage so I have adjusted this for you in the recipe below. I also substituted my own Short Crust Recipe in for Marco's because I didn't like how the pastry sounded in the book and didn't have the 24 hours to rest it either!!

Marco Pierre White's Lemon Tart- 

adapted from page 246 World Class Cakes

Short Crust Pastry

240g plain flour

50g icing sugar

150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)

1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 180C, 350F or gas mark 4.

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.

Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.

Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge until needed.

Lemon Filling

225ml double whipping cream

6 large eggs

240g caster sugar

finely grated zest of 2 lemons

juice of 2 large lemons

In the bowl whisk the cream and mix until it forms a ribbon.

In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and sugar until smooth.

Add the lemon juice to the egg and sugar batter and whisk to combine. Pour the mixture through a strainer onto the cream.

Whisk everything together and then add the lemon zest.

Let the bowl of filling stand in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Take the pastry out of the refrigerator, grease up a 10 inch, loose bottom, round pie dish with some butter.

Roll out a larger circle than your pie dish and place it into your dish pressing the sides gently as you go. Cut off any excess. Chill for the remaining time on the filling.

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F or gas Mark 3.

Remove the pastry shell from the refrigerator and line with parchment paper, fill with baking beads and bake blind for about 20 minutes, or until the inside of the tart becomes golden brown.

Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, then carefully remove the beads and the parchment paper.

Turn the oven down to 120C/250F or Gas Mark 2.

Remove your chilled lemon filling from the refrigerator and whisk again. Pour the lemon filling into the warm pastry shell and bake in a pre-heated oven for about 30 minutes. There should be a slight wobble in the centre when it is cooked.

Remove from the oven and cool completely on a cooling rack.

Once the tart is fully cooled remove it from the baking dish and douse in icing sugar.

*yours will not turn out as brown as mine on the top.. My oven was too hot for the tart when I put it in. Ensure you have sufficiently cooled your oven to avoid this. 

So what do you think? Another Cake Slice Bakers success month from World Class Cakes? I think so.. despite the pitfalls and stops and starts I encountered. There wasn't much left by the time I got to photographing it.. that's a good sign I reckon!

Please scroll down to see all the beautiful cakes that were baked this month, and don't forget to check out our Facebook Page. Also, if you are interested in joining the #TheCakeSliceBakers, please send an email to Felice at thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com, and she will send you all the information you need! We are a great bunch of bakers, happy to make new friends!

An InLinkz Link-up

Autumn Apple Pie

Tudor week on the Great British Bake Off seems like a distant memory at this stage, it feels that long ago. The plan was to bake a savoury but with limited time in the evenings for dinner, I opted to bake a pie just for me. My style and my flavours.

Using up the last of my apples was the perfect excuse for this pie. Husband had bought me a new food processor, as congratulations on doing so well in my Masters so I was eager to try it out. It was perfect and dare I say it, the best pastry I have ever made! Soooo happy with my new toy.

Anyway... the pie does not fill the brief exactly nor do I know how it fits in with the Tudor theme, but it looks pretty and tasted pretty damn good so I'm going to offer it up as fodder for the linky!

It's also another baking on a budget success with all my ingredients coming from Aldi again. The victuals were delicious!

All Butter Short Crust

***Double the recipe if you want all the leaves on the top***

240g plain flour

50g icing sugar

150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)

1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 180C, 350F or gas mark 4.

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.

Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.

Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.

Grease up a 9/10 inch round pie dish.

When it comes out of the fridge, split into two balls, one slightly larger than the other and roll out. 

Pop the larger circle into your pie dish and then if you are so inclined blind bake the pastry case bottom using pastry beads in a pre-heated oven for about 10- 15 minutes. Cut out, using cookie cutters, all the leaf shapes you can with the leftover pastry.  Leave to one side.

Start peeling and slicing your apples.

Apple Pie Mix

3-4 large Cooking apples. 

Skin the apples completely and then just chop them into however you feel... I like to do a rough slice and just keep slicing through the apple until I reach the inner core. Pop them in a bowl adding...

120g brown sugar (I used demerara)
1 tsp pumpkin spice or to taste

Set to one side... Once you have blind baked your pastry case, fill with the apples and top with the remaining pastry or the leaf cut outs.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven and minding the top doesn't get too brown. Allow to cool slightly on a wire tray upon taking it out of the oven and before removing it form the tin.

So a treat for me, from me to you! Be sure to hop by the linky on Jenny's Blog to see what the other GBBObloggers baked up for Tudor week.

A feast for thine eyes to be sure.

Toffee Apple Bakewell Tart

Does anyone else feel like this has been the longest September? And there's still another week left in it.. I mean come on! Let's be done with you already. Maybe it's because I am nursing this stupid cold for the last two weeks that's making me cranky.. but I just want October to get here so we can be in full autumn swing and start thinking about Halloween bakes!

Apple season however is here and my trees have been laden down with yummy apples. I decided to pick some, make a rough jam and use that as my filling for my technical bake with the GBBObloggers.

And it turned out so lovely.. well.. that I am told. Because I can't actually taste the friggin' thing. But it was given to discerning connoisseurs who's impeccable taste described it as "sweet, cinnamon right? Mmmm..." and "Appley, yeah appley but I like it".  I can taste texture though and I know the pastry over baked a little, the jam is chunky enough to soften it out, so that's a strong balance and the bakewell filling is light and spongy.

A good go, if you'll accept my biased opinion!

Toffee Apple Jam

500g cooking apples chopped up roughly
100g soft brown sugar
15g butter
2 tsps cinnamon or to taste

Put all the ingredienst nto a pot and over a low heat, simmer down to a complete mush. You'll know it's right when is breaks up easy with a fork, if not pulse it for a couple of seconds with a hand held blitzer.

Leave aside, off the heat to cool in the pot until ready to use.

Shortcrust Pastry

240g plain flour
50g icing sugar
150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)
1 large egg

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.
Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.
Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or Gas Mark 4.
Grease up a 8 inch round loose bottom pie tin with butter.
After 30 minutes in the fridge, take it out and roll it out thin, to fit your tin.

Blind bake your pastry case bottom, using pastry beads for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Make the almond filling, while you are blind baking your pastry.

Almond Filling

125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
125g ground almonds
50g self raising flour
2 large eggs
1 tsp mixed spice

Cream together the butter and the sugar.
Dry mix the almonds and the self raising flour and add to the mix.
Add the eggs and mix thoroughly until all of the ingredients have been combined.

Once the pastry has blind baked, tip the jam filling into the pastry case and smooth out. Follow with the almond filling and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the top is golden and when touched lightly, springs back.

I decorated the top with some pecan, these are totally optional at this point but do add a nice nutty flavour to the top.

Allow the tart to cool completely in the tin before trying to remove it.

Super Mom Jenny, over at MummyMishaps is again hosting this fine crowd of bloggers, baking along with the Great British Bakeoff. It's bee super fun so far but next week, next week see's a new week, based on botanicals and nature and I have to say I am more than a little excited! I for sure, feel a showstopper coming on!!

Pumpkin Spice Apple Pie

Autumn is always in-my-comfort-zone time for me. 

You know how the dreaded bikini-body season is over and the wrap me up into a squidgy ball of layers season has begun. My kitchen gets stocked up with lovely, hearty flavours. Spices, sweet and savoury begin to appear on my shelves and using just a smidgen of some of them propels my senses into a world of longer nights, cozy fires and hearty suppers.

You don't get that in bikini season. Bikini season (that 3 days of sun between April and August!!) shuns you for liking cream or meringue, or, or um... cream with meringue. Bikini season really sucks. It's why I try to ignore it.. and it's why I stick to shoes! Shoes and I, we got a thing. Shoes will never make my bum look fat! And as for Autumn shoes.. well you've got boots.. and pudgy, squidgy toes in warm toasty socks to fill those boots. It's the best season. 

The American's have this thing called Fall.. It's like our Autumn, but not really. They are consumed by pumpkins and changing leaves and taking pictures of beautifully decorated porches with rich harvests. I guess because they get more than the one and a half seasons we get.. they celebrate them all. 

It makes me so jealous. 

But they do share their ideas with us, so that's always nice! And they have this thing called "Pumpkin Spice" and it comes out in Fall. If Autumn has a smell.. this is it. If Autumn has a taste this is it. And best of all, it's super simple to make yourself. Not to mention cost effective. 

Pumpkin Spice

3 tbsp cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 tsp mixed spice

1 1/2 tsp ground cloves

Add the above spices into a jar and mix. It's that simple. I use a twist cap kilner jar and it makes about about half a jar full. Use the pumpkin spice as required in your recipe.

 All Butter Short Crust 

240g plain flour

50g icing sugar

150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)

1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 180C, 350F or gas mark 4.

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.

Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.

Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.

Grease up a 9/10 inch round pie dish.

When it comes out of the fridge, split into two balls, one slightly larger than the other and roll out. 

Pop the larger circle into your pie dish and then if you are so inclined blind bake the pastry case bottom using pastry beads in a pre-heated oven for about 10- 15 minutes.

Apple Pie

6 large Bramley's fit my 10 inch dish. Skin the apples completely and then just chop them into however you feel... I like to do a rough slice and just keep slicing through the apple until I reach the inner core.

50g white sugar
60g brown sugar (I used demerara)
1 tablespoon pumpkin spice

Fill the pastry case with the apples and top with the remaining pastry. Bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven and minding the top doesn't get too brown. Allow to cool slightly on a wire tray upon taking it out of the oven.

Serve as you see fit.. or save it all for yourself. 

Tell me... What does your Autumn taste like?