dia de los muertos skull pie

© Nick Loven

Aiiiieeeeeee! A savoury dish on *my blog*?!!

Continuing our quest to work through a haul of 65 small-to-medium pumpkins, and in a bid to enter an instructables.com contest, I made Halloween pie! Well, Nick's the filling genius of this particular recipe but I think we'll all agree that the star of the show is my expertly crafted skull! It's actually incredibly simple to make, requiring just a little tin foil and some shaping magic! 

I don't know if I managed to enter the instructables contest after all that, there were major issues with the "publish" step (those pesky CAPTCHAs, even more pesky when they don't show up!), but we did at least get a delicious and entertaining dinner out of it! This savoury pie is perfect as a main course, bulk it up with some veg or another side if you're feeding more that 3 lightly hungry people! You can, of course, make the filling whatever you want, but we have loads of squash and no meat in the house at the moment so veggie casserole style filling it is!

© Nick Loven

Lydia's Dia de los Muertos Skull Savoury Pie - 2 hours. feeds 3ish, for more add a hearty side dish!
Ingredients
Shortcrust Pastry 
225g (8oz) plain white flour, plus extra for dusting
50g (2oz) unsalted butter, diced, plus extra for construction
50g (2oz) lard or veg shortening (or just make the whole 100g up with butter)
2 eggs
splash of water - I used about 2tbsp

Filling: - adjust this to your liking, we go nuts over rosemary!
1 medium brown onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1.5cm discs
13 mushrooms (I used white button mushrooms), cut into quarters
half a small pumpkin, chopped to 1.5cm chunks
2 large sprigs of rosemary
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp gravy granules
2 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
splash of worcester sauce
1 tsp mustard seeds
¼ tsp celery salt
¼ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp dried sage
¼ tsp dried mixed herbs
salt and pepper to taste

You'll also need a pie dish about 7.5 - 9 inches in diameter

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

Method
The key to a good shortcrust pastry is not to overwork it, otherwise it'll turn out chewy instead of melt-in-your-mouth light. Rub the fats into the flour (either with your fingertips or by cutting through the mixture with a knife) until you get a bread-crumb like texture. To this add 1 lightly beaten egg (leave the other egg for an egg wash later) and add the water a bit at a time, while stirring / working with your fingers, until a dough is formed. You won't need very much water - about 2 tbsp was all I needed.

Cut off one third of the dough and flatten both dough balls into discs. Wrap in food wrap / place inside two food bags and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, start preparing the filling.

Heat the oil in your pan and throw in half of the fresh rosemary (chopped, stalk removed), and your herbs.

Add onions and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring.

Next, add the tomato puree, then the garlic, followed by the rest of the veg. Stir well and cook, covered, on a high heat for 5 minutes.

Boil about 250ml water and add to the pan - only enough to reach halfway up the veg in the pot. Reduce heat to medium.

Add the gravy granules, Worcester sauce and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Stir well, pushing the veg down into the water, place the remaining rosemary sprig on top and continue to cook, covered.

After about 7-10 minutes remove the rosemary and continue to cook covered until the carrots and pumpkin are almost done - about 10 more minutes. Give it a taste and adjust the herbs as necessary. Finally, uncover and cook on low to medium to allow the filling to reduce (liquid to evaporate a fair bit).

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F, gas mark 4).

Shape two pieces of foil (each about 50cm long) to form the cheek indentations and fix in place on the pie dish with a piece of butter.

Roll out the large disc of pastry on a floured surface, to fit the diameter and depth of the pie dish.

Lift the pastry onto the rolling pin and gently place into the pie dish, easing it into the nooks and crannies with your knuckles. Put the dish back in the fridge.

Roll out the large disc of pastry on a floured surface, to fit the diameter of the pie dish.

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk
Cut out eyes and the nasal cavity and roll out the cut-outs of pastry into a long thin rectangle, and cut rectangles out for the teeth. Make about 20 that are almost square and 4 that are slightly thinner, for canines.

Lightly beat the remaining egg and brush onto the pastry lid in a smile shape, and arrange your pastry teeth onto it.

Transfer your pastry onto a baking sheet and refrigerate until needed.


© Nick Loven
Once your filling is ready, there'll be only a little liquid left. You can either leave the filling to cool to room temperature, which will prevent the filling from melting your pastry and result in a slightly better structure, or you can work quickly (I was hungry so didn't wait, and it turned out fine)!

Ready? GO!

Place the filling in the base and distribute evenly.
Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg.
Place the skull-shaped top, erm... on top, and seal the edges.
Trim the excess.
Brush the top with beaten egg - be careful around the teeth as vigorous brushing may dislodge them!

Bake in your preheated oven for 45-50 minutes until nicely golden.





Remove from oven and leave to cool for 5-10 minutes before releasing the skull (I loosened mine from the dish, slid it out and peeled away the foil) and digging in!


© Nick Loven



pumpkin cake with honeycomb meringue frosting

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

I promised a super-awesome pumpkin cake with honeycomb frosting using this puree of awesomeness, and by golly gosh I think I'm about to deliver. This cake is incredibly light, with an airy, meringue-based buttercream to match, and the flavours work beautifully together. If you prefer a heavier recipe, or really really love pumpkin cake, why not try last year's Pumpkin Cake with Orange and Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting?  

Other than the bit of self promotion up there I'm not really in a rambly mood, so without further ado

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

Lydia's Pumpkin Cake with Honeycomb Meringue Frosting
Ingredients
Batter
1 egg
2 egg yolks (save the whites for the frosting)
400g (~350ml, 1½ cups) pumpkin puree (to make your own, see this)
330g (just under 2¼ cups) self raising flour (or add 2 tsp baking powder to every 1 cup plain flour if no self-raising)
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg or mace
1½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground allspice
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
pinch salt
300g (2 ¾ sticks, 10.6oz) butter
50g (¼ cup) soft light brown sugar (or replace both sugars weight-for-weight with caster sugar if you don't have brown - 180g - 1 cup)
130g (¾ cup) muscovado sugar

Honeycomb Meringue Buttercream
100g (just under ½ cup) caster sugar
50g (2 tbsp, 1/8 cup) golden syrup
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), sifted and ready to tip into the syrup at a moments notice
150g (1 ⅓ sticks, 5.3oz) unsalted butter, softened
2 egg whites

Method
Preheat the oven to 170°C (375°F, Gas Mark 3) and grease two sandwich tins (8 inch / 20cm) with butter.

Lightly break up the eggs and egg yolks, and mix into the pumpkin puree. Set to one side.

Mix the dry ingredients (but not the sugar) together and set aside.

Cream the butter and the sugar till light and fluffy, then slowly add the pumpkin/egg mixture (together with a couple of spoonfuls of the dry mixture to prevent curdling), while mixing.

Add the rest dry mixture and mix until smooth.

Divide among your pans and bake for 40-45 minutes until the centre of each cake is springy and there's a slight fizzing sound. Leave cakes in the tins for about 5 minutes before transferring, upside down, on a wire rack to complete cooling.

For the frosting, first prepare the cooling area for the honeycomb by greasing well a rectangle of tinfoil. It's best if you keep the foil as smooth as possible, otherwise the honeycomb will set into these creases and removing the foil will be... "frustrating". I leave mine flat to aid with the no creases agenda, and find my honeycomb doesn't roll off, but if you're worried about over-exuberant lava-hot honeycomb froth then you could fold the corners up to form an open box or place the foil inside something heat-proof.

Place the egg whites into a scrupulously clean mixing bowl and make sure the whisk you're using is also clean (I swirl boiling water around / through them, and inevitably, over me). Whisk on medium speed until you reach a soft peak consistency - i.e. when you lift the whisk out of the bowl, the egg whites form peaks that are slightly floppy.

Bring the sugar and the golden syrup to a simmer over a low heat, stirring. Once it starts boiling, stop stirring. If you have a candy thermometer, boil the mixture until it reaches 121°C / 250°F. If no thermometer, it'll be a rich amber colour and quite frothy, and will take about 3-4 minutes on a low heat once it's started bubbling properly. At this stage add half of the hot syrup to the egg whites while whisking, pouring down the side of the bowl so it doesn't splatter against the whisk. You might need someone to help you with this step if you don't have a free-standing mixer. Once the syrup is in, keep whisking the mix on slow to medium speed until it's close to room temperature.

not ready yet
© Lydia, 
punge.blogspot.co.uk
In the meantime, put the syrup back on the hob and bring up to about 153°C / 307°F and a good caramel colour. If you don't have a thermometer, have a glass of cold water handy and test whether you're up to temperature by dipping the handle of a spoon in the syrup, then straight into the water. If the caramel cracks (either hear it or see it), it's at "hard crack" stage and is ready. If no crack, no ready yet. I really struggle with this, even with a thermometer. A little overcooked and the honeycomb will be burned, but undercooked, the resultant honeycomb will be jaw-stickingly chewy. Good luck brave soul. There is a particularly informative article about honeycomb here.

Once the syrup is caramel-y and up to temperature, toss in the bicarb and mix it in thoroughly but lightly, and quickly. If you don't mix it in thoroughly and / or haven't sifted it first, you'll end up with lumps of salty disgustingness in the honeycomb. On the flip-side, I find that if you mix too roughly / too much / too slowly, the froth cools and collapses and you get a very chewy, not particularly aerated honeycomb. Joy. Immediately tip onto your prepared foil and pop in the fridge to cool.

Once your whisking meringue mix is towards room temperature, add the softened butter bit by bit, whisking until well incorporated.

When the honeycomb is cooled, break it up and mix half into the buttercream, reserving the rest to decorate the cake.

To assemble, sandwich together the cooled cakes with the buttercream and, just before serving, decorate with the honeycomb.

Your cake will be fine for a week (I'd keep it in the fridge owing to the meringue-based buttercream), but be aware that the honeycomb will absorb moisture from the air and become soggy. It'll start to absorb water from the air immediately, so store in an airtight container, some sites recommend in the fridge.

Enjoy autumnal yum!

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

unsweetened pumpkin puree

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk
























Ahhh Autumn. The pumpking harvest. Such orange joy.

Nick loves growing giant pumpkins. I favour small pumpkins I can do stuff with (eat) other than stare at in bewilderment and fear. This year in the final throes of our allotmenting, we semi-compromised and planted a giant amount of edible pumpkins. The harvest came in last week and, contrary to my hopes, I stared at in in bewilderment and fear. 65. 65 pumpkins. Sixty. Five.


© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

We carved two, gave away one (so far), made pumpkin pies, pumpkin curry and Moroccan couscous with several, and the rest are currently storing. Luckily many of them are small enough to eat in two meals between the two of us. Pumpkin pies and cakes are a great use for pumpkins at the moment, evoking the autumnal snuggly warmth I've been anticipating, and you can get through a fair amount of pumpkin in this way.

Pumpkin puree is intermittently difficult (and always expensive) to get hold of in the UK, here are some very simple guidelines detailing how I made puree with one of our larger pumpkins. The benefit is that this puree is totally unsweetened, unlike the canned varieties, making this a healthier alternative as you are in full control of the sugar in your bakes. I used a "crown prince" pumpkin for this, any pumpkin will work though, as will butternut squash, but the nuttier and more flavoursome the pumpkin, the richer and more flavoursome the puree will be. I prefer to stay away from more watery pumpkins which I worry will produce too watery a puree.

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk


Lydia's Unsweetened Pumpkin Puree - guidelines
Requirements

Pumpkin (mine weighed just under 2½ kg)
Water
Oven

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F, Gas Mark 6). 

Chop the pumpkin into even sized chunks (or even thickness slices), about 1 inch thick. You don't need to remove the skin at this stage (but do remove the seeds!)


Bake at 200°for 30 minutes before decreasing the temperature to 150°C (300°F, Gas Mark 2) for a further 30 minutes. 

Keep an eye on the pumpkin and if it's drying out, put some boiling water in a tray in the bottom of the oven. This is most likely with electric and fan ovens.

When the pumpkin is done, you'll be able to pass a blunt knife through the chunks quite easily. 

Allow to cool completely, remove the skins and blend in a food processor adding water bit by bit to achieve a thick consistency that totally holds its own. I ended up adding about half a litre of water in total, but this will vary depending on what variety of pumpkin you used and how much it dried out in the oven. 


© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

I had to process in several batches and several times, which was a total pain in the arse. The result was still a tiny bit lumpy but that's fine for me. I ended up with 1140g of puree, equivalent to about 3 cans of shop bought stuff. Admittedly I was not expecting to get so much puree from this pumpkin, next time I'll definitely only use half. It'll store happily in the fridge in a clean jar for just over a week. You could also freeze it in cubes, but may find that it separates on defrosting - mixing it well after defrosting may help it come together again.

© Lydia, punge.blogspot.co.uk

I'm currently working on a super-awesome pumpkin cake with honeycomb frosting using this puree of awesomeness, watch this space!