Aidan made this pie as dessert whilst Conor cooked Mushroom pasta. This is the first pie we’ve made from the The Hairy Bikers’ Perfect Pies cookbook that has been less than perfect. The pastry didn’t puff as much as it could and the filling was more molten than the picture in the book would suggest (and it had exploded out at one point. The pastry may not have puffed as it should because Aidan was ready to put the pie in the oven and it was clear than Conor needed longer for the pasta so we put it to one side for 20mins. Also we cut the pie whilst it was still warm so maybe we should have put it in the oven as soon as it was ready and leave it to cool before cutting. It still tasted good and the whole pie went in a sitting so we didn’t get a chance to see what it was like when it had cooled. It was very easy to make up. Aidan is very competent and the only thing that could be down to him was not doing the diagonal slashes and not putting the pie straight in the oven.
Ingredients
- 100 g butter
- 2 eggs
- 100 g dark chocolate
- 100 g ground almonds
- 100 g caster sugar
- 50 g self-raising flour
- 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
- 400g Can of pear halves, drained
- 375g ready rolled sheet of puff pastry
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 220 C/Fan 200 C/Gas 7
- Whisk the eggs until well combined
- Set aside a tbsp of the beaten egg in a small bowl to use for glazing the pie later
- Stir the butter, almonds, sugar and flour into the rest of the egg and beat hard with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and beat once more. Put the chocolate on a board and chop it roughly, then stir into the almond mixture.
- Unroll the pastry and place it on a baking tray lined with baking parchment
- Spoon the chocolate and almond mixture down one long half of the pastry.
- Press the pears into the mixture and brush the pastry around the filling with the beaten egg.
- Bring the other half of the pastry over the filling to enclose it completely and press the edges together to seal. Brush with more eggand slash the pastry diagonally down it’s length
- Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the pastry is puffed up and golden brown.
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