Easy Blackberry Pie Recipe

blackberry pieThis year our Blackberry bush has decided to produce fruit rather early and my children picked a bumper crop over the weekend. As much as I love a good pudding the weather was so hot and muggy that baking didn’t feel very appealing, so we needed a super quick and easy recipe to use up the berries. Therefore in today’s blog I’m going to share the most quick and easy blackberry pie recipe that I know!

What You’ll Need

1 block of shop bought Puff Pastry (I keep some in the freezer for just this kind of occasion)

550g Fresh Blackberries

125g Soft brown sugar

 

Preheat your oven to 180C/ 350F/ Gas Mark 4

IMG_9871Start by preparing your Blackberries. If they are shop bought then they will just need a quick wash, however hand picked garden berries need to be soaked in cold water for awhile to make sure any resident bugs etc. float up to the surface. After removing any bugs give your berries a final rinse under the tap.

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Next you need to roll out the pastry. Dust your worktop with plain flour and roll out thinly. It needs to cover the bottom and sides of your pie dish, but as it’s puff pastry don’t worry about a fold here or there, you wont notice it once baked.

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Cut any excess from the sides.

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In a large bowl mix together the brown sugar and blackberries. Tip the berries into the bottom of the lined pie dish.

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Using the remaining pastry roll out a top for your pie and lay across the dish, pushing the edges together with your fingers to seal. Cut a couple of steam holes into the centre of your pie.

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Bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes or until golden and risen.

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Eat warm with oodles of custard and/or cream and ice cream.

Tip. This pie is full of juice, if you would rather have a firmer filling then the berries will need to be precooked or a little thickening added (such as cornflour).

 

 

Sweet Dessert Pizza Recipe!

sweet dessert pizza recipeIf you’ve never tried or even heard of this delicious dessert then you need to try out my Sweet Dessert Pizza Recipe now! It’s ridiculously simple, a perfect activity for children and fulfils a sweet craving like no other.

What You’ll Need

Plain pizza bases (make or buy them)

Chocolate Spread

Bananas

Strawberries

Cookies

Jelly Babies

Marshmallows

Other sweets (anything that melts well)

 

The beauty of this pizza is that it’s completely adaptable to your own personal taste, if you don’t like banana then leave it off, if you can’t stand jelly babies use something else, it’s really up to you. Basically anything goes, but the best toppings are those that melt well.

IMG_8051Start by placing your pizza base onto a tray and evenly spread the chocolate spread right across the surface.

IMG_8053Now begin to arrange your toppings, I like to spread out marshmallows towards the centre in an even pattern as it allows them to cook evenly. Fruit provides a welcome freshness and works well spaced between. Jelly babies are wonderful but they do make an unholy mess if placed to close to the edge as they melt right off onto the tray.IMG_8060

Now place in an oven about 180C and cook for 6-7 mins. If slightly overcooked the pizza will still taste great it just wont look so pretty.

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Simple Cake Recipe

Basic Cake RecipeToday I’m sharing with you a very simple cake recipe, designed to assist brand new bakers looking to cook their very first cake. My youngest son has recently expressed an interest in cooking and this was the recipe he used. It’s very much a basic cake, but sometimes that’s just what you need. The cake above was made by my youngest 🙂

What You’ll Need

8oz Self Raising Flour

8oz Caster Sugar

8oz Butter

4 eggs

A Tsp Vanilla extract *optional

Strawberry Jam (or buttercream)

Icing Sugar to decorate

Hint. The beauty of this simple recipe is the ease with which it can be increased or decreased, how ever many eggs you use will require double the amount of oz of the other ingredients eg. 3 eggs, 6oz flour, 6oz sugar etc etc.

Method

Measure out all the ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Spread the batter into a greased cake tin and then bake in a pre-heated oven at 170C for 25-30mins. It’s ready when a knife or skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.

Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Once fully cooled spread Strawberry Jam (or buttercream) in the centre. Sieve icing sugar onto the top to finish.

Ta-Da the easiest cake ever! The simple cake recipe.