Blog Post
We all make mistakes

We all make mistakes !

As I have said many times I have been writing recipes for some time – about a year actually and now I am proud to boast a catalogue of over 300. A few weeks ago I developed my own hand raised pork pie recipe. They were a huge success and the bakers in my family asked me to show them how to make them. We therefore had a family    "Pork pie masterclass" on Friday.

I need to explain here how I work. First I get an idea then I make a few notes in my large black book. I then try out the recipe and adjust quantities etc as I go along. When I have cooked my new recipe for the first time I make further adjustments to improve flavours, seasonings and presentation. When I am finally happy I then make it again, take a photo then write up the recipe on the computer and file it away.

Back to last Friday. I gave the girls my pork pie recipe  printed from my computer file and together we worked through "my" typewritten instructions. They had never made hot water crust pastry before so I reassured them it was straight forward and robust and probably the easiest pastry to make and work with.

Work continued but when I looked around there was a stretchy gooey mess everywhere – loads of it!  We each had a large mass of very wet dough easily the size of a very large football for 4 small pies ! What was I doing ? I examined the recipe and we each had followed it to the letter.  I had never had a hot water pastry like this one. I decided therefore to go back to my black book and oh dear – I had made a massive typo.

For some reason my flour to fat and water was completely crackers ! I therefore quickly added more flour to everyone's dough  – mixed it in my table top mixer and eventually all was well. We did have an enormous amount of pastry each – enough for about 20 pies !  The girls didn't waste it though. They shaped extra pie cases and froze them .

Despite this early problem the girls got stuck in and produced some lovely pork pies which they took home.

I have absolutely no idea how my transfer of information from book to computer was so ridiculously wrong but it has certainly made me very careful now. 

These things happen and we had a good laugh !

As Christmas is approaching we have decided to choose a Christmas tree and decorate it. Over the years we have collected all sorts of decorations and each one has it's own memory. The tree is not themed in anyway but the family seem to love it. I hope you are not stressing and try not to make any mistakes !!!

Talk next week !