Traditional Cornish Pasty

That may or may not be a little touch up patch on the front right..pretend you don't see it! :)

If you have never been to Cornwall then you might well never have had a real Cornish pasty. This is the sad truth! Everywhere I go there are very yummy looking Cornish pasties in very yummy smelling bakeries, and yes they may sometimes be 'ok' but I am yet to find one that is traditional. More often than not they are made using a mushy minced mixture...that's just a blasphemy in Cornwall! There are a few things that make a Cornish Pasty the real deal -

1. The 'D' shape

2. Crimped on one side

3. Filling is created from roughly cut, uncooked chunks of beef, onion, swede and potato

4. Seasoning is a happy amount of pepper and salt

5. Robust pastry that can hold it's shape in the oven/cooling (used to be a ready 'packed lunch' for workers)

6. Sadly the one point I cannot achieve at the moment, has to be made in Cornwall!

Mini Bakewell Tarts

I'm not really sure how to go about this post. I have not been baking or posting as much as I would like recently and there are a few reasons for this which I feel I should probably share with you lovely people that for some reason continue to delight me with your presence on my blog :)

Earlier this year, a few months before I started food blogging, my Dad very sadly passed away. He had had a lot of heart attacks in the past (11 in fact, he was a walking miracle!) but since a triple by-pass in 1998 he seemed to be absolutely fine. On the 9th February this year, my Mum and her partner turned up on my doorstep in University just before midnight, sat me down, and told me that he had been found at his home on the sofa, with his newspaper in hand (he always did the daily cryptic crossword, my Mum still has the paper from the day of my birth and he somehow managed to complete it whilst she was in labour!) and my little sausage dog Penny rather anxiously by his side. He had suffered a massive heart attack and most likely knew nothing about it, the only comfort really is that if he could have chosen that is probably how he would have wanted to go, content and at home. It has taken some time to sink in, well in all honesty I don't think it truly has yet. He left me as a main executor of his will so recently I have been rather busy dealing with a lot of legal stuff that mostly goes over my head in all honesty! We unfortunately have no option but to part with the house, so I have had to learn rather fast about equity releases, mortgages, solicitors/estate agents and their fees (greedy bums.) etc and this means I have had a lot less time to do what has been my distraction, rather successfully!, for the past few months - baking of course :)

Apple Almond Tart

My oh my, if there were any words that would convince you to try out this tart then I wish I could find them right now! I didn't have many expectations when it came to trying this recipe, sure I thought it looked nice but it was more a scrummy looking recipe tried out of necessity than one out of long-term lusting. After making the Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake I was left with 6 dinky little egg yolks just begging to be utilised in some comforting sweet. Im not sure why I opted for this one in the end...maybe the pastry addicted gremlin in my brain working its magic, but I truly am so so happy it won out

Fresh Strawberry Pie

Pastry = heaven. I have no shame in admitting, more than once, if there was some ready-rolled puff pastry in the fridge and I couldn't be fussed to cook I would happily shove a sheet in the oven and call it lunch. If I didn't start worrying about looking like a block of butter I might have made it a weekly occurrence. And this brings me on to this stupendously awesome recipe. I love pastry. Pies have pastry. I love pies.

Now I've eaten a lot of pies in my time and I've made a lot of them also, I really should resemble a pie, but this...this is the most deliciously summery pie I have ever ever ever made, maybe even tasted. So that's saying something!

The Perfect Pie Crust

I searched high and low for a trusty basic pie crust recipe for a long while, I am a self-confessed pastry addict, so Im pretty darn picky I have to say! A year or so back I stumbled upon this recipe at the wonderful blog Smitten Kitchen and it's been my fool proof delicious go-to recipe ever since. It was love at first bite :) If you are still on the hunt for a pie crust recipe that will not let you down - please try this one. I honestly put my baking dignity on the line and say that I guarantee you will be happy with the outcome if you follow all the steps

It's an all-butter crust, and although some people swear by the use of lard/shortening or more recently vodka (Cooks Illustrated's invention I think), this one yields the divinely flakey crisp crust that we all yearn for and it never lets me down. So all butter it is!

In this little tutorial I used my food processor to help things along, but Ive used a pastry cutter before (and have to do it by hand if I do a double crust as my machine is too mini!) I would recommend doing it by hand but it works fine either way :) If using the processor then be very careful not to over process, do not wait until the butter is pea sized before adding in the water - by the time it starts to clump you will have completely obliterated those bits of butter and you WANT to be able to see little smudges of butter when its rolled. It's this that aids your quest for flakey perfection. Head on over to Smitten Kitchen to read more in depth about how to create the perfect pie crust, but if you want the quick n dirty version to robotically follow, then just stick with me and I will take you through it! The Key = Cold. Remember this, the colder ingredients are, the flakier your crust. And that is the aim of the game

Chez Panisse Almond Tart

Please don't let the less than perfect appearance of my attempt of this lovely tart put you off, yours will be much prettier I promise! Read on for my excuses reasons :)

Since I've been on such a foodie love fest recently (cinnamon..lemons..coconut..) I was going to continue this theme and call or start this post with 'I love nuts', but luckily better judgement won through, suspect google searches might well have brought some interesting visitors to my blog!

Back to the topic in hand, this is the infamous 'Chez Panisse Almond Tart'. Possibly the most involved recipe I have yet attempted but by no means hard, you just have to watch over it like a doting parent making sure it doesn't misbehave too badly. If you have not come across this recipe before, it is the creation of the head pastry chef/co-owner of the Chez Panisse Restaurant in California at which the wonderful and inspirational David Lebovitz worked. It was their most popular dessert by far, but was essentially a pain in the butt to make on a larger scale and tricky to eat with a fork. PLEASE don't be put off, the end product more than makes up for it! David states 'it’s the most delicious thing I’ve probably ever had. And I’ve had a lot of things that were delicious', from him..thats incredibly high praise indeed

I actually really enjoyed making this once I realised the process wasn't as difficult as I expected. I have to say it didn't turn out QUITE as I wanted but that is purely because of my oven, or should I say lack of oven...this is my dirty little secret ive been keeping from you. We have an aga which is turned off in the summer, so Im ashamed to say all my baking in warmer months is done in a combination microwave oven *insert sad, embarrassed face* It looks like a normal microwave but has an oven function inbuilt which is handy but it tends to cook too fast around the edges compared to the centre - hence the overdone outside and underdone middle! But this should, if anything, reassure you - if I can produce a remotely yummy edible good then you can definitely do it! And yours will be much prettier than mine :)