Summer Blooms

A welcome change in the season, we're looking forward to what Summer has to bring! Plus a delicious Gooseberry Pie recipe.

500g plain flour
A pinch of salt
250g butter – cut into cubes – plus a little extra for greasing
100g caster sugar
3 eggs, – plus 1 beaten egg for glazing
500g gooseberries
100-150g caster sugar, depending on the sourness of your berries
Thick Jersey cream to serve

  1.  First, the pastry. Put the flour and salt into a bowl and run in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the sugar, then the 3 eggs a little at a time, mixing well, and bring everything together with your fingers into a dough. Cover with clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 20 minutes to make it easier to roll.  
  2.  Preheat the oven to 200c/Gas 6. Lightly grease a large ovenproof plate with butter. 
  3.  On a clean, floured work surface, roll out two-thirds of the pastry into a circle about 5cm bigger than the diameter of the plate. Roll the pastry loosely around the rolling pin then unroll it over the top of the plate, taking care not to stretch the pastry and allowing a little to overhand the edge.
  4.  Put in a layer of gooseberries, then sprinkle with sugar, later up more gooseberries and add more sugar. Reserve a heaped teaspoon of sugar to sprinkle on the top of the pastry before cooking. 
  5.  Roll out the remaining pastry into a circle big enough to form a lid, and again, using the rolling pin to move it, drape it over the top of the gooseberries. Crimp the edges of the pastry together all around to form a seal. With a sharp knife, make a couple of incisions in the top of the pie to allow steam to escape. Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
  6.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, then lower the temperatures to 160c/Gas 3 and cook for a further 30-40 minutes until golden. Serve with cream and enjoy. 

Gooseberry Pie

A much welcome Summer is finally here, and our crops couldn’t be happier! Our team have been working hard on ensuring that everything is ready for what we hope will be a bumper crop. This week we have been replanting our herb garden, harvesting an abundance of salad leaves and rejoicing in this season’s courgette flowers, ready to be stuffed and added to the menu.

We’re also thrilled to have begun filling our new compost bins, ensuring that not only do we keep up our philosophy of sustainability but also that the nutrients in our soil will be replenished to give our produce the rich flavour and quality you expect. Exciting times ahead!

Our recipe this week is inspired by our bumper crop of gooseberries – what else to celebrate with than Chef Corrigan’s Gooseberry Pie. A failsafe pastry recipe, great fruit and not too much sugar add up to a very simple form of deliciousness.