Recipes  see also page on rhubarb
 - Plum Sponge Pudding
 - Plum Pie
 - Apple and Blackberry Pie

 Plum sponge pudding

500g (1lb) ripe plums – washed, halved and stoned, 50gm (2oz) sugar, 1 dsp water
For the sponge
75g ( 3oz) butter or margarine, 75g (3oz) castor sugar, 110g (4oz) SR flour
2 large eggs, ¼ tsp baking powder.
• Stew the plums with the sugar and water until lightly cooked. Cool
• Cream the butter and sugar and gradually beat in the lightly whisked eggs.
• Sieve the baking powder and salt. Fold it into the creamed mixture.
• Put the partially cooked plums in the bottom of a pie dish and cover with the cake mixture.
• Bake in a moderate oven(180°C, no5 gas) for approx. 40 mins. Reduce the temperature slightly to prevent the cake mixture from burning, if necessary.
• Serve with crème fraîche, cream or ice-cream.

Plum Pie
500g (1lb) ripe plums – washed, halved and stoned, 100g (4oz) sugar
Short crust pastry
175g (6oz) plain flour, 80g (3oz) margarine or butter, pinch salt, approx. 6 tsp cold water
• Sieve the flour and salt.
• Rub in the margarine until like fine breadcrumbs.
• Add the water to ensure the mixture forms a firm dough – don’t make it too wet.
To make up the pie
• Prepare the fruit and layer with the sugar in a pie dish. The dish should be well filled as it will reduce during cooking.
• Roll out the pastry. Use a few slices from the side to line the edge of the pie dish the top the pie with the pastry. Seal the edges.
• Bake in a hot oven (200°C, no 6 gas) until the pastry is golden/light brown, then reduce the temperature to ensure the fruit is cooked – approx 40 minutes in total.
• Sprinkle the top with caster sugar and serve with custard or whipped cream.
Recipe by M.McCartney ©

Apple and Blackberry Pie
I can’t believe that my old college cookery book has no recipe for blackberry pie. When I was a child this was definitely the dish I waited for all year. We went out blackberry picking when I was very young – my mother said that I ate more than I picked. In wet years, the blackberries may have been full of maggots - well each berry may have had its pet maggot but, I soon learned to ignore them in favour of the berries themselves. Blackberries are one of the real wild fruits available to us as the ‘brambles’ – the plants they come from are very hardy, deep-rooted, tenacious, so – are particularly difficult to eradicate. So, let’s make the most of them.
Ingredients – for a 1 litre ( 1½ - 2 pint) pie dish
2 good-sized cooking apples – Bramleys for preference
1 good sized punnet of blackberries( 1lb or 450 -500gm). The amount is not critical. The fruit must fit into your pie dish to fill it well.(the fruit will drop as it cooks)
3 Tblsp. sugar
Short crust pastry
150g plain flour (6oz)
75g margarine or butter (3oz)
6 tsp cold water approx.(this amount may vary slightly depending on the weather and the flour you are using – you need the ingredients to bind together without being sticky).
Method
• Sieve the flour and salt into a baking bowl. Add the margarine and rub in with your finger tips to create a texture like fine breadcrumbs – don’t allow the mixture to become sticky.
• Add the water slowly to ensure the ingredients combine without becoming too soft.
• Knead gently to combine the ingredients for a short time – 1 minute.
Making Pie
• Preheat the oven to 180°C, Mark 6 gas
• Peel. Core and slice the apples and place half of them in the pie dish.
• Put in a layer of blackberries and a layer of the sugar.
• Repeat this process until the dish is full.
• Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured board to ½ cm thick approx.(¼in)to the shape of the pie dish. Cut off a strip of pastry wide enough to go around the rim of the dish
• Wet the edges of the pie dish with water and apply the strip to the edges. Wet the top of the pastry strip with water.
• Put the pastry on top of the pie. Trim and seal the edges. Put a small slit on the top of the pie to allow the steam to escape.
• Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes then reduce the temperature and bake for a further 15 – 20 minutes to ensure the fruit is cooked. Don’t allow the pastry to burn
• When baked, sprinkle the top with a little caster sugar immediately and serve with cream, ice-cream or crème fraîche.
recipe by M.Mccartney