Orchard Fruits Lattice Pie - Great British Pie Week

We don't eat that much pie in this house - sweet or savoury. I am not very good at making pastry and my OH says that the ready made stuff makes him feel sick which annoys me because I'd cook with it a lot more if he wasn't so fussy. I also prefer a crumble or eve's pudding. But seeing as it's "The Great British Pie Week" I felt I should attempt something...but not pastry. I don't have the time, skill or patience to make my own. And it's messy. So, ready made it is!

I fancied a fruit pie and I wanted to try a lattice top as I've never made one before.

I ran into a few problems. I don't have a pie dish, so I used a quiche dish instead. I needed more than half the pastry pack to make the base but I thought it would be ok since the top was latticed and didn't need as much. Wrong! I had to roll out the strips a bit thinner and then cut out and reuse the pieces where the strips overlapped! Haha! I was worried the lattice would dry out and burn because the pastry was too thin but happily it all worked out in the end... except a naughty teenage boy had eaten most of the tub of Cornish clotted cream ice cream in the freezer that I was going to use to serve with the pie. I stretched that out too - everybody just got a small scoop.

A bit of a fiasco but it actually turned out to be a very tasty pie and everybody loved it! Next time I'd use less pastry for the bottom by rolling it a bit thinner. The recipe is below.

Orchard Fruits Lattice Pie
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
500g Ready Made Shortcrust Pastry (I used Jus-Roll) or home-made pastry.
1 x cooking apple (Bramely)
1 x hard pear (Conference)
3 x red plums
juice of half a lemon
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons milk
plain flour for rolling pastry
butter for greasing

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / gas Mark 4
• Grease and flour a pie dish or in my case a quiche dish.
• Roll out just over half of the pasty for the base and line the pie dish. I don't bother with pie weights and greaseproof paper etc, I just prick the pastry all over with a fork (called docking) and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
• While you're blind baking the base, prepare the fruit. In a large bowl, put the lemon juice along with the water. This is so that you can put your fruit in there and toss in the citric acid to stop it going brown while you're peeling and chopping the rest of the fruit. 
• I start with the plums - cut in half and remove the stone. Slice thinly. I keep the peel on as it adds nice colour to the pie. The I peel, core and slice the pears. Remember to keep tossing the sliced fruit in the lemon juice to stop it going brown - a set of salad servers is good for this. Lastly I do the apples as they go brown the quickest - peel, core and slice thinly.
• Spread the fruit evenly over the par-baked pie base and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of sugar.
• Now roll out the rest of the pastry and cut into strips of about 2cm wide (I used a clean ruler to keep them straight and even). Lay them over the top of the fruit in a lattice arrangement.
• Brush with the milk and sprinkle over the remaining sugar.
• Bake in the oven for 35 minutes or until the pastry is golden and the fruit is soft when you poke it with a sharp knife.
• Serve hot or cold with custard, cream or ice cream.

Hope you have a happy Great British Pie Week! Did you make or eat a pie this week?