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.