Charlotte Pike

Food & Drink Expert

Baking

Strawberry and Rhubarb Galette

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This is a particularly delicious summer fruit galette. The galette is a flat, free form tart, which is made from one sheet of pastry that is topped with filling and the edges folded in to encase the filling ingredients and all their lovely juices. It’s a particularly quick and easy way to bake with pastry.

The combination of strawberries and rhubarb is especially delicious, and one I’d urge you to try if you have not already. It is a particularly good combination to try at this time of year when the first english strawberries arrive, giving sweetness and fragrance to this sublime tart.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Galette

This is a wonderful fruit galette that can be made with any seasonal fruit. Try rhubarb, strawberries, plums, apples, for example.

©Charlotte Pike

Serves 8-10

Ingredients

 

For the pastry

375g plain flour

50g cornflour

100g caster sugar

200g butter, chilled and cut into 1cm dice

75g Greek yoghurt

1 tbsp lemon juice

Pinch of salt

2 large eggs, beaten

3 tbsp demerara sugar

 

For the filling

1kg total prepared weight of sliced rhubarb, and hulled, sliced strawberries

100g caster sugar

 

Method

 

Start by making the pastry. Place the flour, cornflour and caster sugar together into a bowl and stir together to combine. Add the diced butter and rub well to form a rough breadcrumb consistency. Add the yoghurt, lemon juice, salt and one beaten egg and mix to bring all the ingredients together into a smooth dough. Bring the pastry into a ball, flatten it into a disc, wrap well and chill in the fridge.

Meanwhile, prepare the fruit. It can be sliced as thickly or thinly as you wish, where appropriate. Sprinkle the sugar over the fruit and leave it to macerate.

Once the pastry has been chilled for at least 20 minutes, preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4 and roll out to form a circle around 40cm in diameter. Transfer to a large non-stick baking sheet, covered in a piece of non-stick baking paper, or a silicone mat. Pile the fruit in the centre of the pastry, scraping all the sugary juices out of the bowl onto the fruit. Fold the edges roughly in around the fruit, leaving the centre uncovered by pastry. Brush the remaining beaten egg over the exposed pastry edges before sprinkling the demerara sugar over the pastry.  Bake for 35-45 minutes until the fruit is tender and pastry is golden brown. Serve warm or cold, with cream, ice cream or custard.

Homemade sausage rolls

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This is a very flexible recipe. Good quality sausage meat makes an excellent filling, and it is pre-seasoned, too. You can add extra flavours to the meat if you wish, such as dried chopped fruit, maybe apricots, or fresh herbs, such as sage. Try a sprinkling of sesame seeds on top of the pastry for an extra layer of flavour. I often do half and half.

Good quality sausage meat and all butter pastry make all the difference here.

Make large sausage rolls for lunch or a picnic, or mini sausage rolls to serve with drinks. Either way, I promise you they’ll be gone in a flash.

Homemade sausage rolls

Charlotte Pike

Makes 8-10

Ingredients

450g free range sausage meat (do buy pre-seasoned from your butcher)

300g ready rolled all butter puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/Gas Mark 4.

On a floured work
surface, unfurl the pastry, and cut lengthways into 
two long, even rectangles. Roll the sausage mixture into sausage shapes with your hands and lay along the centre
 of each rectangle. Fold one side of the
 pastry over, wrapping the filling inside. Press down with your fingers or the edge of a spoon to seal. Cut 
the long rolls into the sizes you want and space them out on a baking tray. Brush with the beaten egg and bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until puffed, golden and cooked through. Serve hot, perhaps with some tomato relish on the side.

Apple pie

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Freshly baked apple pie

Freshly baked apple pie

An apple pie is one of the most comforting, homely puddings you can ever make, and this is my all-time favourite recipe, adapted from my Hungry Student Baking book.

If you’re not confident making pastry from scratch, this is a great recipe to start with. It’s pretty much foolproof and produces a delicious, rich, buttery pastry. It’s slightly sweet and enriched with egg yolks, which is exactly how I like sweet shortcrust pastry. I hope this recipe will also convert you to making pastry at home, rather than using shop-bought. The difference is astonishing.

This pie is easy and quick to make, as homemade pies go, and it also uses readily-available ingredients – all of which I will generally keep in the kitchen – so this is a lovely last-minute dessert to make to follow a Sunday roast. It’ll really impress your family or guests.

Feel free to add more spice or dried fruit to the mix. Cloves and sultanas all work very well here. You could also use half Bramley apples and half eating apples, such as Cox, Braeburn or Jazz, which would produce a softer texture and taste a little sharper.

Apple pie

Copyright Charlotte Pike

Tip: I use eating apples in my pies, but feel free to use baking apples, such as Bramley apples. Just add an extra 25g/ ¼ cup sugar

Ingredients

For the pastry

  • 300g/2 ½ cups plain flour
  • 150g/2/3 cup butter, cubed and chilled
  • 4 tsp caster sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 8 tsp ice cold water

For the apple filing

  • 650g eating apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices
  • 70g/generous 1/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 4 tsp water
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 3 tbsp caster sugar for sprinkling

Method

  • Place the apple slices into a saucepan with the sugar, cinnamon and water and cook for 10 minutes. The apples should have softened a little during this time.Set aside to cool.
  • If you are making pastry, start with this first. If not, skip to stage 9
  • Place the flour and butter into a bowl. Rub together lightly using your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs
  • Add the sugar and egg yolk and stir into the butter and flour
  • Finally, add the cold water, a little at a time. Take a table knife and use this to stir the mixture to mix the water in.
  • Once the water has been added, bring the pastry together to form a ball. Wrap in cling film and chilli in the fridge for 20 minutes
  • Whilst the pastry is chilling, preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6. Grease a 24cm pie dish, or a 20cm/ 8” round spring form tin well and set aside
  • When the pastry is chilled, take two large sheets of clingfilm, place half the ball of pastry between the two sheets and roll out to be thin enough to fit the tin – ¼-½ cm thickness is generally about right.
  • Fit the pastry to the tin and press into the edges and round the sides. If you are using the springform tin, build the pastry up to 5 cm up the sides of the tin and cut around the edges neatly. If you have any thin patches, just press any excess pastry over them to cover them up. If you are using the pie dish, leave 1-2cm excess pastry around the rim.
  • Fill the pastry case with the apple mixture.
  • Roll out the second half of the pastry as you did the first half. Place the pastry on top of the pie and cut around the edge of the dish using a knife.
  • Dampen down the edges of both pieces of pastry with water. To do this, take a little cold water in a glass. Dip your finger in the water and then dab it onto the edges of the pastry to moisten. Then, take a fork, and press down around the rim of the pie to seal the pastry.
  • Brush the pie with the beaten egg to glaze, and sprinkle with the caster sugar. Make a couple of cuts in the centre of the pie using a sharp knife
  • Bake the pie for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.
  • Serve with cream, custard or ice cream