My mother’s way of dealing with a fruit glut was to make fruit pies and freeze them uncooked. So we took a leaf out of her book and made a batch of peach pies and stashed them away. Without a pudding one day and feeling lazy, we got one out of the freezer and stuck it straight in the oven. This was the result. We will be doing more of this in the future. 700g fruit
For the pastry:-
250g plain flour
A pinch of salt
125g butter, cold
2 beaten eggs
Pre-heat the oven to Gas 6/400F/200C, with a baking sheet.
Lightly grease a 24cm enamel pie plate.
First, make the pastry as it needs to be set aside in the fridge to chill. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, then rub in the butter until the mixture becomes crumbly. Add half the beaten egg and, using your hands, bring the dough together. Add a little more egg if it is too dry to come together. Reserve the rest of the egg for brushing over the finished pastry.
Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the fruit. Peel, core, slice, chop, according to the type of fruit.
Put into a saucepan with a little water and cook gently with the lid on for 5-10 minutes until soft [this varies according to the type of fruit]. Empty the mixture into a bowl and allow to cool.
Take the pastry from the fridge. We use the Rachel Allen method of rolling out pastry: lay the lump of pastry on one layer of cling film and put another on top. First, roll out a little more than half the pastry to a round, and transfer to your pie plate. Press it gently and firmly all round. Add the cooled filling.
Roll out the second half of the pastry to form the lid. Dampen the bottom layer of pastry around the edge with water, fix the lid in position, and press firmly around the edges.
Trim, flute the edges all around either with your fingers or the tines of a fork. Make a hole in the centre, to allow the steam to escape. The pie can be frozen from this stage: simple put it in a freezer bag, suck out the air with a straw and tie tightly with a freezer tie. Put in the freezer. To bake now: brush with a little of the beaten egg. Place the pie on the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.
If you are baking the pie from frozen, take it from the freezer. Brush with a little beaten egg then place the pie on the baking sheet. Be prepared for the pie to need longer than 30 minutes, ours took an extra 10 minutes. 5 to remember
seguir el ejemplo de [alguien] – to take a leaf out of [someone’s] book
flojo/a – lazy
en el futuro – in the future
sin – without
más – more