Blackberries and Apple Pie

When i was on a walk i  noticed that there were lots of blackberries out and ready to picked and enjoyed so yesterday me my mum and my brother decided to go blackberry picking at the end of our road where there is a hedge which is always full of the fruit. we picked quite a few, but most of them were still green and not ripe enough and we didn't want to pick too many anyway, or else we may not use them all. I was going to make a large crumble but our local post office didn't have any clotted cream in, so i made a couple small ones instead (using half the recipe of shortcrust pastry) and put a yogurt on top, which made it healthier anyway. I got the recipe for the pastry from my mums really old book called 'Good Housekeeping Cookery Book, New Revised Edition'

Serves 4

Pastry ingredients:

250g Plain Flour

110g Butter this should be 140g but you can get away with using less.

12 tsp water

Filling Ingredients:

4 handfuls of blackberries

2 apples

Method:

Mix the flour butter and salt together

Using both hands and rub in the butter

Keep going for a couple minutes until the butter is properly mixed in.

Add the water and start to bring the dough together and knead until it is a firm, smooth dough.

Only use half of the pastry made if you are making two small pies, like I did, or use the whole lot if you are making for 4.

Roll out the pastry as thin as you can without it tearing (i.e. about 3mm)

Gently press one of the small tart cases onto the rolled our pastry and cut  a circle about 2-3cm  away from the ring mark made from the rim of the tart case so that when you put the pastry inside the case, the pastry will cover the sides too, there fore keeping in all of the juices.

Carefully place the pastry inside and don't forget to keep any spare pastry for later!

Wash the blackberries very thoroughly if you have hand picked them to make sure there are no bugs on them. while they are draining (in a colander) place a bowl underneath, to catch the tasty juices, we don't want to waste that!

Wash, peel and chop the apple(s) into pieces and distribute evenly between the cases.

The blackberries should have drained by now, but if they haven't, just wait for it to have finished draining.

Put a handful of blackberries into each of the cases and put even amounts of the juice in each of the cases as well.

If you have any spare pastry, roll it out again and, using some cutters if you have them, or just a knife, cut out some shapes for the top, i put two large stars on each and a few smaller ones.

Cook for about 15 minutes or until it looks well done but not burned

Be careful of the blackberries inside once cooked, they will be really hot, so wait a while before eating with cream, yogurt or ice cream if you have any.

All of my pictures are taken on my Canon EOS 500d with EF-S 18-55mm IS Lens which I would highly recommend. 

Thanks for looking at my blog!

Blackberry, Lemon and Chocolate Cupcakes

I recently visited m&s as they have a 20% off home ware at the moment, so i bought some mini silicon cases which were £4 down to £3.20. These cases were so small that I made 1/2 the recipe just so i didn't make 81 more than the recipe says (i seriously did that, i made 93 cookies by accident.) Anyway, this is my version of  a 'hummingbird' recipe - vanilla cupcakes.

Ingredients:

60g Plain Flour

1 flat tsp baking power

salt

20g butter

1/2 egg

60ml whole milk

40g Sugar this should be 70g but as I am adding fruit later on, there are natural sugars in that, so you can get away with not using as much

a couple drops of vanilla extract don;t use too much of this as it will make the lemon buns to vanilla-ery

large tsp of chocolate spread don't use too much, i put a bit too much in and the sank slightly in the middle

2 tsp lemon

A small handful of freshly picked blackberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C/325defrees F/Gas 3

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl and mix with an electric mixer. It should have a sandy consistency.

Pour half the milk in and beat until the milk is just incorporated.

Whisk the egg, vanilla and the rest of the milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds.

Mix the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.scrape the sides of the bowl clean and keep on mixing for a couple minutes/until smooth.

Split the mixture into three bowls and add the different flavourings, chocolate spread into one, lemon in the other and blackberries in the last. be careful with the blackberries so that the do not break up.

Put the mixture into the small  cases (silicon if you have it)

Cook for about 15 minutes, keep checking them once they have been in for 10 minutes so they don't burn. 

Be careful with the blackberries, they will be hot when the come out, so leave them to cool, before eating.

All of my pictures are taken on my Canon EOS 500d with EF-S 18-55mm IS Lens which I would highly recommend.