Today I am giving you not only a recipe for mixed berry parfait, but also a recipe that allows you to sing its very name to a Prince song. READ MORE
Drink and dial. Do you remember the days? Or drink and text? I recall deleting some numbers from my phone, save I call them at an inopportune gin related moment. READ MORE
This is a terribly greedy pudding. It’s not content with being a pastry tart, it’s gone one better and added a blackberry custard filling. Then it threw caution to the wind and added a cookie crumble topping. Just call it ostentatious.
One year ago: Death by chocolate cake and Lemon brioche
Two years ago: Macarons and Sausage and potato pie
Three years ago: Mince pies and Easy cheesy pasta
Blackberry and hazelnut cookie crumble pie with a pastry crust
Serves 6 – 8
Ingredients:
Place the flour into your stand mixer bowl or if doing by hand in a large bowl then add the butter and either use the flat beater at speed 1 to make breadcrumbs, or if making by hand rub the butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb type consistency. Add cold water a dribble at a time and use a blunt knife to pull the pastry together. Once it forms a ball, wrap in clingfilm and chill for 30 minutes.
Roll to 4mm thick on a floured work surface being careful to roll in one direction and then turn the pastry 90 degrees after each roll. Once you have a rough circle shape place the pastry carefully into a loose bottomed tin measuring about 20cm. Allow the edges of the pastry to hang over the tin a little and then line with greaseproof paper – the paper should be high enough to reach to the top of the sides of the tin. Chill the pastry lined tin for 20 minutes and preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6.
Fill the pastry and greaseproof paper lined tin with baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes then remove the beans and paper, brush the pastry with egg wash and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little. Turn the oven down to 160C/gas mark 3.
Toss the blackberries in the sugar and custard then pour into the pastry shell. Mix the nuts, flour, sugar and baking powder with the flat beater in a stand mixer (or by hand with a spoon) then stir the melted butter through until gathering into clumps. Sprinkle over the fruit and bake the whole pie in the oven for 45 minutes. Serve with warm custard of cold cream.
I love Autumn, in fact I love Winter too. Spring’s good. Summer I am shy of. It’s the need to bare flesh and drink white wine rather than red that just doesn’t sit too well with me. But Autumn with your ’70s brown and orange colour scheme and your leaving the house cold air slap in the face and your chin skimming scarves and your comfort blanket roast dinners and your warming, lip staining red wine and your scalding crumbles and your crack and crunch toffee apples and your oohs and aahs at the fireworks that last all of 2 minutes. Autumn, I love you.
Is there anything more Autumnal than oats, apples and blackberries? Here’s a little video I made with Sainsbury’s of these flapjacks. I *may* have taken two trays home from the shoot. They were that good.
Ingredients:
If you like flapjacks but want to make your mix go a bit further you can save money by making these flapjack balls. (Also loved by kids, it might be their miniature nature.) Or if you want to make your flapjacks a little bit different adding jam to the middle is delicious. And my favourite alternative to regular flapjacks has to be this no bake version using muesli, butter and toffees. It’s very easy and very moreish. Dangerous!
Holly Bell 