Hot crust Pastry

We are in a tidying mind frame....this also means checking out the recordings.  We had viewed or cancelled most items on the hard drive but there still is a folder with 54 programmes which are just mine.  Usually I do not watch TV until well into the evening, but to check out these programmes, I decided the best time was whilst doing the ironing.  I now have no backlog of ironing! 

I found a programme from the 2011 series of the British Bake Off, where Paul demonstrated hot water crust pastry for small pork pies with quails egg.  I had been thinking about tackling hot water crust pastry for some time.  In the end I amalgamated two recipes, I had no quails eggs, but I did have a fillet of pork and some apricots.....I had a pan which I had bought a few years ago to try the large muffins.  I felt the muffins were too large and too sweet for every day eating, and the tins apart from being used to make some brioches, before my sister bought me some mini brioche moulds, had been hidden under loads of other tins in the cupboard.

 

The pastry is so easy to make and roll out.....but try what may I had only sufficient to make four of the giant muffin sized pies.  I had used the quantities given on the programme.  For my six pies I will need to use:

300 g Plain Flour, 60g strong flour, 75 g butter, 90g lard, and 150 ml water.  4500g of meat, 120 g bacon, and a large onion.

I found a size plate just the right size for the liner, and the lid of a stainless steel pot right for the cover.  I used the large end of a small piping nozzle to make the hole.....the first time my pipping set had been used!

In his How to Bake Book, Paul Hollywood, does not mention about putting in the empty cases and tops into the fridge for half an hour, which he does on the programme.  I used the fridge cooling, as my pastry was a little too soft without that. 

I flavoured the bacon, onion and pork fillet mixture with salt, pepper, and whole white mustard seeds, with some added chopped parsley and grated lemon rind,I filled the bottom half with the mixture, then put in four apricots and finished with another layer of meat.  My warm fingers needed to go round a couple of times when crimping, as at first the pastry was a little too brittle to form the nice shape. 

Each hollow in the tray has a 190ml capacity.  The finished cooked and gelatin filled pie weighs 280g when cold.

I do not usually buy stock cubes, and when I read the contents in Waitrose, I decided to use some my own stock:  100ml with a sheet of gelatin, for the four, so next time for 6, 150ml stock with 1 1/2 sheets.

Mr S was a little disappointed that these were not on the menu.  I explained about filling up the pies with stock, and waiting for it all to set when he came home from work, but as we did more tidying I checked that the pies were cold, and put one in the coolest part of the fridge.  So we shared one for supper after a bowl of leek and chicken soup.....why have I waited so long to start making our hot water crust pies?  I think this size pie is a little too large for one, for right for two.  The rest will be in the freezer ready for weekend lunches.

I wish that the capacity of tins in volume was readily available when buying tins, and also given in recipes .  I recently bought some Silverwood Bead Baking tins, as 500g and 1 Kg, and the 500g one is slightly larger capacity than my old 900g/ 2lb cake tin.  So if I used these for cake recipes, the mixture would not give the right shape at all.