Fruit picking in the rain

 Sometimes I might wish the garden wasn't quite so well-drained but with the rain we are having this year I am counting myself lucky.   Everything is growing like mad.   Happily during the last couple of days the seemingly relentless wind has dropped and the smells in the garden have been absolutely delicious.

Dodging the rain I picked my first fruit this week - raspberries enough to make a decent pie - and most of this years crop of redcurrants - scarcely a dessert bowl full.   What a comparison with last year.   But what I am lacking in redcurrants is more than amply made up for by a plentiful crop of loganberries and blackberries - the best ever.   Whether these balances are more to do with the hard winter or the warm March and wet ever since - who knows?

And here is the recipe for the pie:

Raspberry and redcurrant pie with shortbread pastry 

1 1/4 lbs fresh raspberries

1/4 lb fresh redcurrants, stalks removed

8 ozs white self raising flour

4 ozs cold butter

1 oz dark muscovado sugar

1 oz caster sugar + sugar for sprinkling

1 oz ground almonds

pinch of table salt

1 tablespoon cold water

1. Sieve together flour, caster sugar and salt into a mixing bowl.   Add ground almonds.

2. Add muscovado sugar, breaking any lumps with the back of a spoon.   

3. Add butter chopped into small pieces and rub into flour mixture with hands, adding a little water at a time 

until the mixture sticks together and moulds into a ball.   

4. Cover and chill for 1/2 an hour.

5. Pre-heat oven to Gas mark 5/ 375 degrees F/ 190 degrees C

6. Place raspberries and redcurrants in an oval pie dish.

7. Lightly flour work surface and roll out pastry until larger than the top of the dish.  The pastry is quite fragile so work carefully to try and avoid large cracks.

8. Using the rolling pin as a support ease the pastry over the fruit in the dish.

9. Trim off excess pastry with a knife and pinch edges between finger and thumb to seal and decorate.

10. Pace on a baking sheet in the centre of pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, turning after about 20 minutes to check pastry is evenly cooked.   It will go quite brown.

11. Remove from oven and sprinkle with reserved sugar.   Best eaten quite hot with icecream!!!

Note:  This is very rich pastry so I have not added sugar to the fruit but those with a sweeter tooth may!

copyright Sue Atkinson July 2012