Sunday bakes - 'fright night fun' figgy brown treacle tart

I read an article the other day about brown sauce, it was an abusive piece, lambasting the poor old sauce for being a taste bully. It made me feel a bit defensive of poor old brown sauce, yes sure it's not everyone's cup of tea and generally I only eat it on a full english fry up, but if you look at the ingredients it's really quite an interesting one. It's jam-packed with spices and tamarind sauce and it got me thinking about the other possible ways brown sauce could contribute in my kitchen. 

This weekend I went to Tulleys farm's shocktoberfest, which is hands down my favourite thing to do all year. It's a halloween theme park, with a selection of 'haunts' in an atmospheric setting and I find it both hilarious and terrifying. I went with a couple of friends and my boyfriend so afterwards we curled up in front of a fire with a glass of whiskey and this pie. 

Ingredients
250g plain flour
4tbsp caster sugar
130g butter
350g golden syrup
50g brown sauce
3 ripe fresh figs
150g fine fresh white breadcrumbs
2 lemons
1  egg

Method
First make the pastry. Chop the butter into small cubes and combine with the flour, rub between your fingers to make a fine breadcrumb texture, add the sugar, then add 2 tbsp of cold water, one by one to bring the mixture together. You don't have to add it all. Don't play with the pastry too much, wrap it in cling film and put in the fridge for 20 minutes. 

Pour the liquid ingredients into a pan along with the zest and juice of the two lemons and heat gently. Once this is warmed through add the breadcrumbs and heat for another 5 minutes. 

Roll out the pastry, grease the tart tin and lay 2/3rds of the pastry into the tin. Prick the bottom so it doesn't rise up. Fill the tin with the breadcrumb mix then slice the figs and lay them in a pattern on top. 

Roll out the rest of the pastry and cut into strips of equal width, arrange in a lattice pattern and place on top, pressing into the base pastry along the edges. Make an egg wash and brush all over, bake at 160 for 15 minutes until the crust is golden brown. 

This is surprisingly nice with a good old fashioned custard in front of a fire. 

Sunday bakes - 'Pretty pleased to be home' plum and marzipan pie

The last few weeks have been a bit crazy with travelling, first going up to Edinburgh, then to Chelmsford for a wedding, then down to Cornwall and then to Dublin once a week ever since. So it's been lovely to spend it a little bit of time at home.

To celebrate homeliness this week I bakes a plum, cherry and marzipan pie to give to my mum in lieu of a birthday cake.

Ingredients
Ripe plums
Caster sugar
Dried cherries
2 tbsp cherry brandy
200g marzipan, chopped into small cubes
1 pack of shortcrust pastry
1.5 tbsp cornflour

Method
Place the plums carefully into a saucepan with the caster sugar and heat gently. One the plums are starting to sizzle a little and the sugar is melting, add the brandy. Cook for just a couple of minutes, you want the plums to keep their colour and shape. Pour them into a sieve over a bowl and leave them to drain.

Roll out the pastry and line a pie dish, trimming the edges.

Place the plums into the pie dish, so the coloured domes face upwards. between each layer of the plums scatter the marzipan and the dried cherries.

Add a small amount of the plum juice mixture to the cornflour and mix into a paste, add a little more juice and mix again. Keep adding until all the juice has been mixed with the cornflour so you have a thicker syrup.

Drizzle two to three tablespoons of the juice over the plums in the pie and then add your pie lid. You can do whatever style lid you like, but remember to leave a space for the steam to escape. I opted for a sun rays design.

Cover the pastry in a milk or egg wash to give it a lovely golden brown colour and then bake at 180 for twenty minutes.

Misty mornings, mussels, and mackerel

I went on holiday!

I had a wonderful time down in Cornwall, thank you to the Anderson family for inviting me. I learned to fish, and make a couple of not fabulous attempts at star photography. The positive news was that I found my camera had a bulb setting, the bad news was that I needed a remote shutter. But never mind, I'll get one for next time. My last morning there was beautiful, it was about halfway through for everyone else so we were all sleeping in a little, but I woke up at 7.30 to find a blanket of sea mist with the sun rising behind it, so of course I had to run out with my camera, still wiping the sleep out of my eyes. So here are a few of my holiday snaps.