Bake Off: Pie Week (#GBBO)

As I’ve been away my Bake Off Pie Week post is a little belated, but better late than never! I’ve never made any kind of pastry, so wanted to master that this week, and rather than go for a fruit pie like they did in last week’s episode I thought it would be nicer for me and my boyfriend to have a break from all the sweet treats and have a good hearty meat pie for tea this weekend. So this is my steak and Guiness pie, and oh my was it delicious!

About the pastry:

I decided to make a rough puff pastry for the pie lid, as it seemed simple enough. For my 2-person pie I just used 90g plain flour and 90g of cold butter (cubed), plus around 50ml cold water. The colder it all is the easier it is to handle!

The method was just to mix the butter and flour slightly, then add the water in small amounts and gather everything together in a clump. The mixture shouldn’t become sticky, so don’t add all the water if it is going that way!

Rough puff is all about layers so on a floured surface roll out the mixture into a long piece, then fold the two ends into the centre, and then fold in half. Then give the pastry a quarter turn and roll it out into a long piece again, and repeat the folding process.

I then chilled it in the fridge for 15 minutes before repeating the whole thing again. In the end I did the folding process about 5 times.

Once I was finished I kept the pastry in the fridge until I was ready to use it.

Steak, Guiness and cheese pie

For the filling I used Jamie Oliver’s recipe, slightly adapting it as I didn’t want to use all the suggested vegetables. I also reduced quantities so it was the right amount for 2 people. This was an amazing pie and I would definitely recommend trying this recipe out!

I found the process of putting the top on the pie the most challenging bit, as my original pie dish was too small for a 2-person pie (the filling didn’t reach the top and there wasn’t enough pastry to cover it. After transferring to a suitable alternative dish I followed various pieces of advice, and used water to stick a strip of the pastry around the edge of the dish, which is what you then attach the top to (again, with water). I suppose the edge was a little messy, but for a first attempt it wasn’t bad. Here’s my pie before baking in the oven, after I’ve given the pastry top an egg wash.

And here is the delicious result. I’ll definitely be making this one again!