I have a massive thing about home baking.
Alongside my slow cooker and my old fashioned top loading spin dryer from the 1990s, its the most utilised gadget in my home. I must buy a spare for when it eventually dies.
I am a single parent with two children so cook everything from scratch. I bulk buy flour and ingredients in the kitchen months ahead and then meal plan to save money.
Additionally I know what is in every single meal I cook. From pizza bases to pies, from pasta bakes to stews and vegan dishes that have formed a lot of my post weight loss diet.
From cakes and sponges, to cinnamon rolls and tray bakes, post divorce I forced myself to really start to cook pub or restaurant quality food on a tight budget but not scrimping on taste, flavour or preparation.
You can do this and save a lot of money too in the process.
Cooking and baking has been an awe inspiring journey. I was lucky growing up. .My mother and also her middle sister, I remember being fantastic cooks They both inspired me massively. My childhood sweetheart's mother, Janet, also made dishes that have inspired me as an adult. These things from your youth that then get stored away as happy points in life you then recreate, or at least try to. Also in the 70s and 80s there was not a lot of money around so people were a lot more creative. I keep the price per portion low. But I also make sure the quality is high and the taste is the best it can be with well made food put on the table. It is achievable.
And in this current climate it's a fantastic opportunity for you to try too.
Are you a single person or single parent ?
Life change can be good for your wallet and lead to an enormous increase in the quality of food we cook. Even in credit crunch Britain I am living proof.
I divorced my ex wife at speed almost five years ago. Since then a whirlwind has gone off in the kitchen.
It was not a good marriage and equally was not blessed with any form of culinary expertise. We were an awful unit from day one when we met, not a team and just two people with nothing in common apart from my cheque book and sharing a house and my paying for one hundred percent of everything.
I was working away a hell of a lot and we had small children and my ex, without being rude, doesn't have a creative pallet when it comes to cooking meals of note. If you're not sharing a bed and one of you is away overseas a lot, you aren't going to be cooking together
Like many kids of the 80s in the UK, I don't think she was ever shown, and like many people if you don't have that influence or want to learn you don't then have that need to do it yourself. A lot of kids from the 80s did Home Economics at school and then stopped learning how to cook. My sister used to bring the most awful creations home from school which we would eat with a grimace.
It wasn't her cooking because my long-term partner and girlfriend / love of my life, was in her class at school and created the exact same dishes which I then had to eat again. Folkestone School For Girls had this creation called "Pink Stuff" that I think was a scourge of households for decades.
Ready meals and processed foods
I haven't bought a ready meal in three years and I don't buy shortcrust pastry or pre made shop bought frozen or ready made pies.
I have an electric pie machine that I do use a lot. It saves on electricity and makes two pies at a time. They are fantastic and I thoroughly recommend buying one. They crimp the pastry, bake the pie and save a fortune on the cost of running an oven. They make a comforting happy meal but also can be used to make sweet filling pies too.
Alternatively I have some enamel pie dishes that I and the kids line with my homemade pastry, and then blind bake, lining it with baking parchment and pouring in baking beads. Before placing in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 9-12 minutes.
Then simply add an egg washed pastry lid, either using my own pastry, or shop bought puff pastry.
Baking is the heart of a home
My ex wife said pies are only eaten by fat smelly Northerners. I'm neither fat nor smelly but I am a Northener. Thankfully divorce not only saves a massive life changing sum of money in carrying someone, it also allows you to eat better meals and have a very happy new existence building new memories High quality food is at the core of that.
My ex, as you can tell was not a pie fan. At all. I've since learnt that if you're a bit entitled and self absorbed and you don't want to embrace good food, or scared of making good food then you won't embrace and learn how to bake. Properly bake. At speed. And to be comfortable doing it. If you can do it as second nature even better.
In my marriage I was away a hell of a lot. One reason why the marriage either lasted as long as it did (it was a really short marriage) or why it failed.
When I was home I had to endure some of the least imaginative and bland baking experiences you could imagine. Although for a short period there was a promise of change. For a period my ex had a website called the Daily Bake Diary where we were guinea pigs for experiments with flour and food dye.
For about four months there was a flurry of activity when she wasn't having affairs. A combination of inedible sponge cakes with the consistency of upholstery foam covered in fondant icing made with goodwill so to rant would be cheap.
Made with good intent but indigestion inducing. You would be excited to find the edible soft bit once you chiselled through the hard exterior baked sponge. Family birthday cakes made with love were appreciated and dreaded with equal measure.
It's often a topic of nervous discussion in the Morrell household when you have two parents in two homes with massively different abilities in the kitchen. And it's not about having time to cook, baking is prep, if you make the pastry at speed the night before and put it in the fridge to rest then you can have a meal the next day in minutes.
My kids are blessed to have two churches of cooking, here and elsewhere, two different centres of taste and textures, flavour and creativity. And it doesn't take huge amounts of time once you are comfortable.
Not that creativity always works. Even with good intent. My ex wife once made me a Red Hat Fedora cake covered in shop bought insulin inducing icing. The icing covering sliced up portions of insanely dry sponge.
The aesthetic was there but the delivery totally borked. The thought was much appreciated as she also had a very small child and a baby and was stretched to the maximum and tired. I adored her for it and was grateful for the sentiment.
The effort was always massively appreciated but the accompanying dread of having to consume these creations was always diluting the enjoyment. I dreaded her creations but applauded her trying. If you don't try you don't get the baking bug. I knock out Victoria Sponges, scones, bundt cakes and cookies at speed now. My sponge puddings and sauces are extremely popular with guests.
I love baking and I love creating cakes, sponges and confectionery. Equally I have long discovered that good quality pastry is an art form and that there are two methods of making pastry for pies that work really well.
Pastry for a pie machine and pastry for a savoury blind baked pie dish being two totally different bedfollows.
Dick's pastry recipes
If you have a pie machine it's very much like an electric toaster. In that you have two small elements in the base and lid of a small device that you plug in to the mains electricity.
Big rule of pie making
Do not buy shop bought pastry for use in these machines, it defies the point of ownership. You'd be better off buying pre made pies and you'd save money too.
Why does a pie machine need different pastry ?
You are making a pie that needs to have a firm but still edible shell that is subject to high heat for 9-11 minutes. Crumbly pastry that melts in the mouth but still allows a knife to go into it to reveal the contents. Getting the consistency right so that it comes out the machine without breaking and dumping the hot contents onto the kitchen side.
I've experienced this first hand with normal short crust pastry. It doesn't work at all.
So the solution requires a pastry that will bind well but that cooks with a glaze or sheen and that also stores well in the fridge prior to use for two or three days if you need to.
Always always make your pastry ahead of time. The day or night before is good, but if time is of the essence an hour pre use, take your pastry put it into a freezer bag and freeze it for an hour. Preferably ninety minutes. This replaces resting it in the fridge which is the other alternative for three to four hours.
I have not found one online or book based recipe that works. This recipe does work and has been trial and error and is my own take on what produces a fantastic pastry for savoury pies. For sweet filled pies add a half cup of caster sugar and replace the egg with three tablespoons of ice cold water.
So here we go.
Makes 8 pies
Prep time 9 minutes
Cooking time 9-12 minutes depending on wattage of pie machine.
1) I have a really good kitchen stand mixer, a 1600w seven litre capacity unit with multiple attachments. You don't need one, in fact if you use a stand mixer you will end up with bland pastry that will bake harder as you're increasing the gluten in the pastry and making it harder to bake well. Also by the time you've got it all together you will spend more time washing it up and putting it away than you need to.
2) get a big mixing bowl. We are doing this by hand. It's the only way.
3) into the bowl add four coffee cups of plain white flour. No need to sieve.
4) From the fridge. Soft baking margarine (not butter). I buy it in 2kg tubs from Morrison or Tesco as buying 500g tubs is expensive from other supermarkets. And whomever makes the tubs for Tesco and Morrison is the same company. Get some £2.40 ish for 2kg. Lard. 40-60p a packet from any supermarket.
5) two small eggs
6) take the flour and add to it about 65g of cubed cut lard from the packet. Make sure it's cut into cubes about the size of sugar cubes.
7) add a good quality of the cooking margarine, about the same amount again, but if you want to add more only increase by 1/5.
8) with clean hands get mixing and rub the flour and ingredients together, making sure you don't have lumps, you're looking for a good consistentcy. After it's all blended like breadcrumbs crack two eggs and mix them by hand into the dough and within a minute the pastry will be finished and the bowl clean from the combined ingredients meeting and merging.
9) wrap in film or put in freezer bag and freeze for an hour. Or put in fridge for a good 4-5 hours.
10) when you are ready to use just take out fridge or freezer and with a good handful of plain flour, roll it using a good rolling pin to a depth of about 3.5-4mm before using it for your pie lids and base. Cut with your chosen radius of cutter.
Bake in your machine with choice of filling until lids are cooked and golden, removing carefully from the machine and trimming excess pastry carefully.
Pie pasty for enamel / silicon pie dishes
Use the same recipe above but increase the lard to about 110g . Reason being is you are baking it for longer (blind baking base for 12 minutes at 190 in the oven for 12 minutes for a pre heated oven.)
When rolling out the lid from the remaining pastry, after you've applied your filling of choice, egg wash.
Bake in the middle of an oven at 200 degrees until cooked.
I always pre cook the pie filling contents in a saucepan prior to filling the pie.
Fillings
Chicken pie - a Morrell Family Favourite
Always popular with my kids, we make a chicken pie filling from chicken breasts cut into decent sized chunks. Browned off in a skillet or heavy frying pan in rapeseed or olive oil.
I then add to that pan, tinned sliced mushrooms, handful of frozen vegetables, some crushed garlic. For seasoning, then add a sprinkling of dried marjoram, and a sprinkle of onion granules and a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper.
Flash fry the contents together. In a jug I mix chicken gravy granules with boiling hot water to a decent consistency.
Add to the pan contents and mix, simmering on a medium heat for four minutes. The chicken chunks should be soft but cooked along with the other ingredients. Season with ground black pepper.
Add / subtract mushrooms as you see fit.
Take off the heat and use.
Easy steak pie filling
You can pre make and freeze a steak filling by making it in a slow cooker, using quality chuck steak you can get your supermarket butcher to cut for you with the fat trimmed off, brown in flour in a heavy frying pan with some olive oil. Pinch of salt and pepper.
Add to slow cooker, add teaspoon of onion granules, teaspoon of garlic granules or powder, teaspoon of cornflour, pour in quality beef bouillon in 60ml of boiling water.
Then add a cup of your choice of liquid if you want, water, beer, red wine etc. Put the machine on low and leave it for six hours making sure you stir every 45 minutes making sure it doesn't stick.
Alternatively: cheat
The quick alternative: makes 6 pies in a pie machine. Use Asda value or Lidl or Tesco own brand stewed steak. Canned, one tin will fill 6 small pies in a machine.
For an enamel or silicon pie dish you need two cans of steak due to the amount of meat in the Asda cans being better quality than the more expensive variants alsewhere.
No need to pre cook it, just spoon it in.
Mince and bean pie
In the 1990s I used to go to East Stree pie shop in Sittingbourne in Kent. They had a fabled pie, cooked in crumbly pastry that my pastry does it's best to totally pull off.
That pie was a minced beef and onion and baked bean pie. I've tried making it from shopmbpught ground beef mince and failed miserably.
Solution: use a can of minced beef and onion, and mix with a value tin of beans. One can of minced beef and onion from Asda is £1.35, add a 25p can of beans and mix in a bowl.
That is enough to fill twelve small pies or one large family sized pie in an enamel dish.
Chips
Make your own.
Did you know shop bought bags of frozen chips are a con ? And ever increasing in price too.
An average bag of oven chips or ready to cook chips from the chiller aisle is about £2.69 and contains 480-500g of chips. That price has risen 90p in a year.
Don't buy them. I buy 5kg or 7 5kg bags of Maris Piper chips (sometimes 12.5kg bags) and make my own. We invested in a chip cutting block and it makes a family sized meals worth of chips in under 20 seconds once you've peeled the potatoes. I've had three different air fryers and I am not a fan.
We have a small deep fat fryer that I change the oil in every few weeks (I buy 8 litres a time to save money). It takes about 1.3 litres of oil and I make sure when I drain the oil I also deep clean the unit leaving it with boiling hot water and detergent. You then get chip shop quality chips every single time. And it's cheap to run. Air fryer chips are appalling. And any prat who thinks wedges in an air fryer are good....
Buy trade or bulk, but buy smart
I have a contract where I buy bulk items such as vanilla essence (litre), sugar (5kg sacks), soya mince (2kg bags), and baking powder (kilo containers). By doing so ahead of time I save 65-80% on supermarket equivalents.
For example vanilla flavouring in the shops is £1.40 for 28ml. I pay £4 a litre trade. Do the math.
For baking powder it's £1.10 a small 75g container in the store, I pay £5 for a kilo.
The only thing I don't buy bulk any more, trade, is flour. Asda value plain flour is fantastic as is their self raising flour and it's 58p for 1.5kg bag. Which is cheaper than the trade price per weight.
Sweet pie filling
Cheat. Do not buy canned pie fillings. They are extremely expensive. Princes and other companies charge a lot. Copy me.
I bulk buy 5kg tubs of fillings from catering suppliers. So pies, turnovers, crumbles, cake fillings, sponge puddings all get turned out at speed with minimum effort.
Now get baking.
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