MORE CAKE - Lemon & Elderflower Swiss Roll

So I'm still revelling in having the time to bake, and also loving all the fruit, vegetables and flowers that come with Summer. This recipe is inspired by that - specifically, the tiny, fragile elderflowers whose fragrance hits you every time you walk past a bush at the moment. They're only in season for a short time each year, so make the most of them while you can!

Ingredients:
For the Sponge                                                       For the Filling and Decoration
- 3 medium eggs                                                     - 2tbsp lemon curd
- 75g caster sugar                                                   - 100ml double cream
- zest of 1 unwaxed lemon                                     - 1tbsp elderflower cordial
- 75g plain flour                                                       - 1tbsp icing sugar
                                                                               - ½tsp lemon juice

You'll also need a 20x30cm baking tin, greased and lined.

1. Start by pre-heating the oven to 220°C. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and thick (this will take at least 5 minutes with an electric whisk).
2. Tip in the lemon zest, and gently sieve in the flour, a little at a time, using a large metal spoon to fold them in.
3. Evenly pour the mixture into the tin, and bake for 9-10 minutes, until golden brown and springy to touch.
4. Grab a sheet of greaseproof paper a little bigger than the cake tin and sprinkle with caster sugar. As soon as the sponge is out the oven, transfer it to the paper and peel off the lining paper from the tin. Make a small cut 2cm in from one of the short sides, then gently roll up the cake from the end with the cut. Allow to cool completely.
5. When the sponge is cool, unroll it and spread on the lemon curd. Whip the cream with the elderflower cordial and spoon it on top, then re-roll the cake as carefully as you can.

6. Mix together the icing sugar and lemon juice, then use a teaspoon to drizzle it over the cake. For an extra bit of pretty, you can grate over some extra lemon zest and use the icing to stick on fresh elderflowers.

Simple Summer Breakfast

Hello! I'm so sorry for being MIA recently - finals are life-consuming and I've literally been living in books and essays for the last two months. I haven't even been cooking (I've been home and Mum's been looking after me), so there hasn't been much to blog anyway... BUT, I have discovered a super yummy breakfast, that's quick and easy to make and provides good work-fuel to boot. RHUBARB.

Rhubarb is one of my favourite summer fruits, and at the moment you can buy it everywhere (if you're in Egham, we also sell it at the fruit and veg market on Tuesdays). It takes all of five minutes to cook, and then you can use it with anything.

Ingredients:
- 4 sticks rhubarb
- 2tbsp caster sugar, or to taste (the general rule is half sugar to rhubarb sticks)
- natural yoghurt, to serve

1. Wash your rhubarb and cut into inch long pieces. Place in a microwaveable bowl with the sugar, then microwave for 5 minutes. Stir, then cook for a further minute or so ('til it's as soft as you like it to be). Voila! You now have stewed rhubarb.
2. Serve with natural yoghurt for a brilliant breakfast. If you have some around you can also grate over some nutmeg, or even add your own granola for an added crunch. The rhubarb will keep for a few days, so you can make enough to keep you going for a while.

My last essay's due on Friday, so after that it'll be back to regular posting while we run around in the sun and do lots of cooking. Enjoy, and to anyone else doing finals, good luck!

Pumpkin Cake for Halloween

This may look like a perfectly normal generic cake. 

(Especially compared to Bryony's Hobbit masterpiece, omg.)

But this cake tastes awesome, because it's actually got pumpkin in it - think carrot cake, except more seasonal, and a liiiittle bit spooky. Because Halloween.

The first time I made this cake it was October 2011, during our first year in halls. I made pumpkin cupcakes and Bryony and I decorated them with Halloween pictures.

 

Bryony's was the cat and mine was the castle.

But the recipe is quite substantial and I seem to remember making about a thousand of these goddamn (although admittedly quite small) cupcakes. So this time I've made a full on layer cake instead. Because why not?

Now I'm not entirely sure where I got the original recipe that this is based on from, because at the time I found it online and wrote it down on a scrap of paper to bake from and never wrote down where it came from... And now I can't find it.. But it's seriously awesome cake.

Pumpkin ready to roast

You also need to make pumpkin purée, and I used this method here. It's super easy and super effective. If you use a whole pumpkin, you'll definitely have some left over. I used mine to make pumpkin risotto, or you could make it into pumpkin soup or freeze it for future pumpkin cakes.

So. Here's what you need:

280g self raising flour

2 Cardamom pods, seeds only, ground into a fine-ish powder.

3/4 tsp ground nutmeg

3/4 tsp ground ginger

3/ tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp salt

110g butter, softened (or margarine)

200g caster sugar

5 tbsp soft brown sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

180ml milk

250g pumpkin purée

For cream cheese icing/filling:

100g cream cheese

25g softened butter

175g icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

And here's what you do: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius. (Or gas mark six. I have a gas oven now, it's very weird...)

2. Grease and line two cake tins. Alternatively, you could use this mix to make cupcakes, in which case you should line cupcake tins with cupcake cases.

3. Sift together the flour, nutmeg, ginger and allspice, then mix in the salt and the cardamom.

4. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter, the caster sugar and the brown sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at at a time. Once combined, stir in the milk and the pumpkin purée. 

5. Stir this into the flour mixture, until just combined.

6. Distribute your cake mix between the two tins, or between your cupcake cases.

7. Place in the oven and bake. If you're doing two big cakes,bake for around 40 minutes, checking them after 20 to see if they need turning. If you're doing cupcakes, bake for 25 minutes, and check after 15.

8. Take out of the oven and cool thoroughly.

9. Once cooled, you can ice your cake(s). To make the icing, beat the cream cheese and the butter together. Beat in the icing sugar a little at a time, add the vanilla extract and beat it in thoroughly.

10. Pipe decorative swirls of icing onto your cupcakes, or if you're making a layer cake, spread the icing mix on top of one layer then sandwich the other one on top. Dust with icing sugar and voila, pumpkin caaaaake.

(Also, this is Alex and I dressed up for Halloween. Alex is dressed as a bat. Again. You can't see my wings but I was dressed as an evil fairy type thing :p)

Super Simple Summer Lunch

It's. So. Hot. Which means I have much less energy for cooking (and blogging - sorry about the big gap between posts), so I need things which are really quick and easy to make while still being yummy. This fits all of those and is also one of my absolute favourite things to eat.

Ingredients (serves 2):
- 4 big vine tomatoes
- 2/3 pack of feta cheese
- 7-8 basil leaves
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- some good bread, to serve

1. Slice the tomatoes to about 2mm thick and place into a large baking dish, then tear the basil leaves and scatter over the top.
2. Slice the feta so it's roughly the same size and thickness as the tomatoes, then layer that on top.
3. Generously drizzle some olive oil over the whole thing, then season with salt and pepper. 
4. Cook at 200°C for about 25 minutes. 

And voila. Easy as that. Use the bread to mop up all the lovely juices so you don't miss out on anything!

One ha' Penny, Two ha' Penny (Hot Cross Buns)

I've been meaning to make hot cross buns for years, but somehow never got round to it. The Easter holidays is always full of birthdays and revision for me, and so baking always seemed to get knocked down the 'to do' list until it was suddenly no longer Easter and I felt like I couldn't make them.
BUT NOT THIS YEAR!

Just look at all that sticky goodness. Also, I know they look a bit over-baked but I promise you they don't taste burned and are amazing and you should make them. So there. I adapted Paul Hollywood's recipe, because even though I'd never made them before I still can't just follow a recipe. And my version really is brilliant (if I do say so myself).

Ingredients:  (makes 12)
- 300ml milk
- 375g strong white flour
- 225g strong wholemeal flour
- 75g caster sugar
- 1tsp salt
- 7g sachet fast-action yeast
- 60g butter
- 1 egg, beaten
- 125g mixed fruit (raisins, sultanas, currants... that sort of thing)
- 75g mixed peel
- zest of 1 orange
- zest of 1 lemon
- 2tsp ground cinnamon
- 1tsp grated nutmeg
- sunflower oil, for greasing the bowl
- 50g plain flour mixed with 5tbsp water (for the cross)

- 2tbsp apricot jam mixed with 1tbsp water (for the glaze) 

1. Warm the milk until it starts to boil, then remove from the heat and let it cool to hand temperature.

2. Mix the butter, egg, flours, sugar, salt and yeast together in a bowl. No fancy rubbing or creaming or anything like that, just bung it all in and stir a bit. Try and make sure the salt and yeast don't go straight on top of each other though - salt kills yeast, so if you do that your buns won't rise.

3. Add half of the warm milk and stir, then gradually add the rest. You won't necessarily need all of it - just use enough to bind it all together. Also, don't worry if it's really sticky. It's meant to be. Trust.

4. Add the mixed fruit, peel, spices and zest, then tip out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for about five minutes (holding the dough with one hand and using the heel of the other to stretch it), 'til smooth and elastic-y, then place it in a lightly oiled bowl (covered with oiled cling film) and put it in the airing cupboard/somewhere warm to rise for an hour.

Before and after rising. Possibly my favourite bit.

5. Divide the dough into 12 even pieces, and roll each piece into a ball. Arrange on a baking tray that's either been greased or lined with baking parchment, so that when they rise again they'll just be touching. Let prove for another hour (I got distracted and proving time here was more like two hours, but it was all fine, so don't worry if you do something similar).

6. Turn on your oven to 220°C at this point, then make up the mixture for your crosses - literally just stir the flour and water in a bowl. Grab yourself a plastic sandwich bag and spoon in the mixture, twisting the top. Cut a small hole in one of the corners, and use it as a piping bag. Pipe across a whole row of buns (rather than doing one at a time), then go the other way to give crosses.

  

7. Bake for 20-25 minutes on the middle shelf of the oven 'til golden brown. Enjoy the brief period of being able to tell your boyfriend you have a bun in the oven and making him laugh/run away screaming (depends on your boyfriend I suppose. Thankfully mine laughed).

8. In a small pan, heat the apricot jam and water 'til they're all mixed together and quite runny. Brush the buns with the glaze as soon as they're out the oven, then let cool and set before ripping apart to serve - if the people in your house can wait that long.

Happy Easter, all.

Pancakes are for life, not just for Tuesdays

Or Shrove Tuesday, specifically. I adore pancakes. I've been the resident pancake-maker at home since I can remember, and they're so fun and easy to make that there's really no excuse not to. Last summer I went to France, and the fantastic crêpes there only increased my love. 

 

There are a million ways you can eat your pancakes, but the basic batter recipe's a simple one, and not at all expensive to make.

Ingredients (makes approx 12):

- 115g/4oz plain flour

- 2 eggs

- 300ml milk

- 2tbsp melted butter

You can use gluten-free flour. I did last week cos that's basically all we have in the house, and I suggest if you do that you add an extra 50ml of milk cos the batter'll be thicker.

1. Put the flour in a bowl. Add the eggs and some of the milk, and whisk in the flour a little at a time.
2. Gradually pour in the remaining milk, whisking until the ingredients are well mixed in.
3. Add the melted butter and whisk again.
4. Brush the frying pan with a little more butter, and heat the pan until it sizzles. If the pan isn't hot enough your first pancake will fall to bits, and I take it upon myself to prove the 'first pancake will fail' rule wrong as often as possible.

5. Pour in approx 2tbsp of batter, and cook for about a minute - until the edges are curling and the batter is bubbling - then flip. Despite my love of pancake-making I had honestly never flipped a pancake before last week. So thank you, Jamie, for teaching me the art! 

As for the filling, it's really just whatever you fancy. My sister's favourite is maple syrup. Mine's good old lemon and sugar. In summer I re-created a spiced, caramelised apple concoction we'd had in France, which we ate with raspberries and yoghurt:

Grab two apples (peeled, cored and sliced), 3tbsp caster sugar, 1tsp of cinnamon and 50g butter and put them in a pan. Whap on a gentle heat for about 10 mins until it's all golden and sitcky.

 

 

It's Been a While...

Because life has been insane. 

Since I got elected Communications Officer at the SU life has been manic, and with uni work, getting ill and general life being crazy I had to give up a few things to make things work. Watching Downton Abbey and writing this blog were just two of them, and I sincerely apologise. (Mainly to Bryony. Bryony I'm sorry...)

BUT HEY, HERE'S A GINGERBREAD HOUSE TO MAKE UP FOR IT.

Every year for the last four years I've made a gingerbread house. It started off back in 2009 because I was ill and needed things to do and I've never really been a fan of christmas so I figured I'd make a gingerbread house to give me something to look forward to.

House of 2009

House of 2010

House of 2011

Since then, this epic undertaking has significantly upped the stress levels of cooking for christmas, with structural collapses and smartie shortages really taking a toll on my nerves every year. But it's entirely worth it, just because I'm a show off like that.

I always use this recipe from BBC Good Food. The gingerbread is amazing but the template is a bit small, so I usually print it off bigger so that the largest piece fills a whole side of A4.

In 2011 I attempted a gluten free gingerbread house. It did not go well. I ended up building a giant wall of shortbread to support the inside walls because the walls kept collapsing and it was awful. This year I did it with half wheat flour and half gluten free, for sanity's sake... I also made some structural supports for the inside that made the whole thing hold together like a dream.

The shortbread wall of 2011

The nice, neat structural supports of 2012

My main tip when it comes to making a structurally sound gingerbread house is to make the gingerbread nice and thin. This may sound counter intuitive - you want it to be sturdy and thick right? But actually, the thinner the gingerbread the drier it bakes in the oven, and the less moisture it absorbs over time. This makes it all much more stable and less likely to collapse, trust me on that one... The recipe suggests rolling it out to the thickness of a pound coin and this seems about right to me.

 Decorations? I highly recommend Smarties. Theyre awesome for gingerbread houses. Also Cadbury's chocolate fingers, because they look almost like logs on a log cabin, and my mother loves Terry's chocolate orange and they usually make a good apex for the roof. I used Malteasers on the back and chocolate buttons around the house as a sort of garden.

So there you have it. Gingerbread houses are not impossible. They're not easy but the finished product is entirely worth the trouble it takes to get it all together, so next year you should definitely have a go.

Merry Christmas (with biscuits)

We've had some sort of biscuits at home at Christmas for as long as I can remember, and a few years ago I started adapting a recipe for traditional Speculaas biscuits. As well as being super yummy, they also make great presents - either for Christmas presents or post-Christmas thank yous. Also you're allowed to make them after Christmas so long as you're still within the twelve days of it, I've decided. So GET BAKING PEOPLE.

Ingredients:

- 200g/8oz plain flour

- 2tsp cinnamon

- 1tsp ground ginger

- 1tsp nutmeg

- 1tsp baking powder

- ½tsp salt

- 100g/4oz soft brown muscovado sugar

- 2tbsp milk

- 150g/5oz butter

- 2tbsp glacé ginger

- 1tbsp candied peel

- zest of 1 orange

- zest of ½ lemon

This is meant to make 24, but I used a variety of cutters and ended up getting 40. But honestly? You can't really have too many biscuits.

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper

2. Mix the flour, salt, baking powder and spices in a bowl, then rub in the butter. Add in the sugar, mixed peel, glacé ginger and zest and mix well to combine.

3. Add the milk, a little at a time, and use your hands to bring the mixture together into a soft dough.

4. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface, and roll out to about 0.5cm thick. Cut out your shapes and use a spatula to help transfer them to the baking sheet.

Tip: there'll probably be bits of flour on the biscuits from rolling out - if you dip a soft brush or even just your finger in a bit of water you can use it to brush the flour off and ensure an even colour after baking

5. Bake for 15-18 minutes - they should be puffed up and turning golden brown. Let the biscuits cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

You can decorate them however you like - I mixed some icing sugar with the juice of half the orange I'd zested, put it in a plastic bag, cut off the tip and iced around the edges of my shapes. I also stuck on some dried cranberries, and added edible glitter to a few for that extra festive sparkle.

So, enjoy! A very merry Christmas to you all from myself and Zosia, and all the best for your 2013s!

This Is Uni Christmas Dinner

There is something quintessentially British about a roast dinner, particularly at Christmas, and I'm sure I'm not alone in saying it's my favourite day of the year. We've just had our last weekend at university before the holidays, so we decided to make it our honourary Christmas so we could celebrate together. Earlier in the week we Christmas-ified the house, and yesterday Jamie and I went out to pick holly before I embarked on the epic mission that was the roast dinner. It was beautiful.

 Not just the food (though that was pretty darn good if I do say so myself), but the company and the laughs and the cracker-hats and just everything. It was a good day. BUT I'll stop being sentimental now and get on with the recipes - I'm going to go through all the elements (in the order I started making them), so this'll be quite a long post, but it'll be totally worth it, promise.

Meat substitute:

I decided to make some awesome veggie pies, because I couldn't find anything nice in tesco. This made enough for four of us, as I did gluten-free red onion and rosemary sausages for Zosia.

Ingredients:

- 1x 500g pack puff pastry                                            - 150ml white wine                         

- 25g butter                                                                  - 1½ tbsp plain flour

- 6 shallots, roughly chopped                                       - 250ml veg stock          

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed                                              - 75ml double cream                   

- half an onion (save the other half for gravy)              - sprinkle of dried thyme            

- 4 new potatoes, peeled and chopped                        - salt and pepper             

- 1 pack asparagus tips, washed and chopped              - 1 egg       

1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the shallots, onion and garlic, then cook until soft and just beginning to colour - about 8 minutes.

2. Add the thyme, new potatoes, asparagus (not the tips yet) and wine, and boil 'til the wine has almost gone. Add the flour and stir well.

3. Pour in the stock and add the tips of the asparagus, then season to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring fairly regularly so it doesn't stick to the pan.

4. Add the cream and cook for another 3 minutes. Voila, filling done.

5. Roll out the pastry to about 1cm thick, then cut into small and large circles (I used a cup for the smaller ones and a bowl for the larger). Put the smaller ones on an oiled baking tray, then pile on as much filling as you can stack up, leaving a rim around the edge. Wet the rim and then put the larger pastry circle over the filling, making sure it sticks to the rim of the smaller circle. If you like you can also make decorations for the top, and stick those on with water too.

6. Beat an egg, then brush the pies with it. This will make them all golden and lovely. Once that's all done, they want about 30 minutes at 200°C in a preheated oven.

Roast potatoes:

This, like the yorkshire puddings, is Andy's recipe - a mix of his ideas, Nigel Slater's and Nigella's. A mix which certainly works, because roast dinners should not be as good as Andy's are, so I'm copying.

1. Begin by heating about 1-2cm of vegetable oil in a roasting dish at 200°C.

2. Peel enough potatoes for the number of people, and put into a pan of cold water. Bring to the boil, and cook for a MAXIMUM of 5 minutes.

3. Drain the potatoes in a colander, then put the colander on top of the empty pan and place the pan lid on top for about 5 minutes, or until you're ready for them. This will steam dry them and make them extra crunchy later.

4. Sprinkle over some plain flour (or semolina powder if you have it - I was on flour) and some salt and pepper, then do the hokey cokey (aka shake it all about) and get them all scuffed.

5. CAREFULLY, place the potatoes into the super-hot oil, making sure they're completely coated. Really do be careful - I was rushing too much yesterday and I have the burn-marks to prove it.

6. Put the dish back into the oven and let the potatoes cook for 35-40 minutes, checking and turning them half way through.

I over-did them a bit, but honestly it just added to the crunch. YOU CAN'T LOSE WITH THESE.

Yorkshire puddings:

This was my first time making Yorkshire puddings, though I've had Andy's and Mum's homemade ones for years. Mine therefore weren't quite as awesome as hoped, but practise makes perfect.

Ingredients (makes 12 - you'll need muffin tins):

- 4 eggs

- 250g plain flour (I used gluten free)

- 350ml milk

- pinch sea salt

1. Preheat the oven to at least 240°C, and fill each muffin tin cup with 1cm of vegetable oil. Put the tins in the oven for the oil to heat while you prepare the batter.

2. Whisk the eggs, milk and salt in a bowl for about 5 minutes using an electric whisk, longer if by hand. The mix should increase in size and be all bubbly, then leave to stand for 15 minutes.

3. Whisk in the flour a little at a time 'til there are no lumps. You should have a smooth batter, and the oil in the oven should be beginning to smoke slightly. 

4. Evenly distribute the batter into the muffin tins (I found it was about 4tbsp per cup), being very careful 'cos they're pretty darn hot. Bake for 20-30 minutes, leaving plenty of space for them to rise. Do NOT open the oven door while they're cooking, or they'll sink and it will be sad.

No, mine weren't as spectacular as Andy's, but it was my first time. And also I was using gluten free flour which is a bitch to work with. So really, all in all: SUCCESS.

Roast carrots and parsnips:

1. Grab enough carrots and 'snips for the number of people, then peel them all and top and tail them.

2. Carrots - chop roughly in diagonal-ish chunks, then place in one half of the baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and a handful of either tarragon or thyme. You can also add garlic too, if you fancy. Give them a good stir so they're completely coated in everything.

3. Parsnips - chop either into small chunks, or cut them vertically and keep them long and thin. Pop them in the other half of baking dish and do the olive oil/salt and pepper thing like with the carrots, then give them a squirt of either honey or maple syrup. Stir to coat.

4. Cook for 30-45 minutes at 200°C, taking out to stir every 15 minutes or so to prevent them burning on top.

I forgot to get a picture of them cooked, but you can see them on the finished plate.

Cheesy leeks:

This is my Mum's recipe adapted from a Jamie Oliver one, and for me no roast is complete without them.

Ingredients (serves 4-6):

- 800g leeks, washed and chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed

- 30g butter

- tsp mustard (French is always best)

- 200ml single cream

- 100g cheddar cheese, grated

- thyme (6 sprigs fresh/decent sprinkle of dried)

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the garlic, leeks and thyme. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the leeks have softened and shrunk down.

2. Tip into a baking dish, then season, add the cream, mustard and half the cheese and mix together.

3. Top with the remaining cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes, 'til golden and bubbling.

This is not my picture. I forgot to take one... though in my defence I was incredibly busy. I'll update this the next time I make them, and for now you can have Jamie Oliver's as a rough guide (although I use a deeper dish and fill it more).

Greens:

You can use whatever you like for these - I used a pack of tender-stem broccoli, some green beans, a few handfuls of kale and some sprouts. Because even though I hate sprouts, it's Christmas, and in my house that means being given two sprouts and being made to eat at least one of them. It's all good fun.

1. Chop the broccoli, sprouts and beans how you want them. Melt some butter in a saucepan, then add the broccoli and sprouts. Cook these for about 8 minutes, stirring regularly, and then add the beans and cook for another 5 mins.

2. Finally add the kale, and cook for about 3 more minutes, until it's shrunk down. Then season well and add a good squirt of lemon juice, and serve.

Gravy:

I made up a pint of Bisto caramelised onion gravy, to which I added a teaspoon of marmite, a dessert spoon of cranberry sauce and (after frying in olive oil 'til soft) the other half of the onion left over from the pie filling. Waste not want not.

Merry Christmas, all.

Gooseberry Pie

So this is like, one of the most specialist recipe combinations everrr. 

We're talking gluten free gooseberry pie. Because my dad gave me GLUTEN FREE READY MADE PASTRY. Which is a revelation because I'd never seen that before, I love pastry and gluten free flour is, 'scuse my french, a bitch to make into pastry.

Plus my grandma gave me thousands of gooseberries. She grows them and they all decided to turn up at once before a rainstorm so she had to pick them and, stupidly, I said I'd do something with them. Course, they're awkward little fruits, more bitter than sweet and you can't even buy them at Tesco. 

SO MANY GOOSEBERRIES OMG.

 So Yes. Here's how I did gooseberry pie:

What you need:

200g of ready made pastry

500g of gooseberries

100g of caster sugar

A splash of water

Some egg yolk

And what you gotta do:

1. Preheat the oven to aroun 180 degrees celcius/whatever your pastry packet says. 

2. Grease the pie dish with a little butter or oil. 

3. Thinly roll out the pastry and place it over the pie dish. Push it down and shape it to the shape of the dish. Trim off the edges and save these to one side to make the lid of the pie.

4. BLIND BAKE IT! This should involve baking beans. I don't have baking beans. I asked the internet. Internet said use rice. I asked the madre. She said use lentils. I used lentils.  I spent ten minutes picking lentils out of the cooked pie crust. Don't use lentils.

The cat watching the pie become a pie.

5. As your pie crust cooks, its time to make the filling. place the gooseberries (washed, topped and tailed) in a pan. Add the caster sugar and a splash of water and heat it up. Leave to simmer for about five minutes until the fruit is nice and soft. (I used frozen gooseberries so I cooked mine for a bit longer.)

6. Take your pie crust out of the oven.

7. Strain the gooseberries through a collander to get rid of the water. Place them in the pie crust.

8. Roll out the remaining pastry so it's large enough to cover the pie. COVER THE PIE! Brush the edges of the crust with egg yolk, and put the pie lid over the pie. Squash down the edges with a fork. Poke a few holes in the pie lid and brush it with egg yolk.

9. BAKE THE PIE. For around 25 minutes until its golden brown.

10. Sprinkle with a little caster sugar.

11. EAT THE PIE. Withh ice cream. Or custard. Or cream.Wonderful.