Easy as Pie by Wendy Morgan

Easy as Pie, a cookbook filled with loads of delectable recipes for both savoury and sweet pies, follows on from Wendy Morgan’s highly popular first book, Who Made All the Pies. This time, she has included a new challenge for pie makers: how to make vol-au-vents.

At the beginning of the book, there are useful tips to help bakers through the process of pie making, the equipment needed, as well as a whole raft of pastry recipes, including cheese, chocolate, seedy wholemeal, orange shortcrust, nori puff, and walnut pastry. More recipes for pastry than I could ever have imagined!

She takes us through the process of making each kind of pastry in simple steps. No need for laboriously rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingertips. She always uses her food processor which is quicker and easier. She also encourages bakers to be adventurous and to experiment with mixing different pastries with different fillings.

Here are some of the highlights:

Fish Pie: Now that the weather is cooler, the time has come to make this luscious fish pie. What I found intriguing about this recipe was the way she has incorporated small pieces of nori (Japanese seaweed) into the puff pastry, adding a pleasing umami flavour. It makes a warming, luxurious dinner for friends.

Beef Goulash Traybake: This is such a creative way of turning an old dinner party favourite into a pie. An added advantage is that both the pie case and the filling can be made ahead of time, then reheated and assembled shortly before serving. The way it is finished, with a dollop of sour cream and a decorative sprinkle of microgreens, makes it a real showstopper!

Mushroom Tarte Tatin: Perfect for a special vegetarian meal! You do need an ovenproof frying pan for this. The filling is made from thickly sliced fried portobello mushrooms flavoured with sherry and a sprinkle of thyme. A pastry disc is placed over the top of the mushrooms. It is tucked in around the edges and baked until golden brown. Then you flip the whole pie upside down onto a plate. That might sound a little scary, but I discovered, to my great relief, that it’s actually very doable!

Lamb Mini Pies with Kūmara and Potato Mash. These scrumptious little pies are baked in muffin tins lined with shortcrust pastry. Lightly spiced mince is simmered in crushed tomatoes and left to cool before spooning it into the pastry-lined muffin tins. The succulent filling is covered with a creamy mash of kumara and potatoes. The recipe makes twelve little savoury pies. They make great party food!

Beef and Beetroot Sausage Rolls: Adults love these as much as kids! The filling of beef mince, sausage meat and grated beetroot couldn’t be simpler. And these sausage rolls are fantastic with her home-made horseradish cream as an accompaniment.

Roast Cauliflower vol-au-vents: Mastering the art of making your vol-au-vents is a challenge I have yet to meet, but I will do it as I’d love to create her delectable roast cauliflower vol-au-vents overflowing with cheesy sauce, cumin seeds, parsley and sunflower seeds and decoratively garnished with pomegranate seeds.

Tomato Tray Bake Tart: Sometimes, there’s not much left in the pantry by the end of the week. Then this recipe, which uses only four ingredients, rough puff pastry, cheese and tomatoes, and a few sprigs of thyme out of the garden, will come in very handy. For this tray bake, a rectangle of pastry is covered with cheddar cheese, leaving a 2cm space around the edges. Slightly overlapping sliced tomatoes are arranged on top, and the pie is sprinkled with thyme leaves before baking. Couldn’t be easier!

After the savoury pies come luscious pies for the sweet tooths, including a Chocolate Strawberry Cheesecake Tart, a Raspberry Coconut Meringue pie, and a Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream Pie. They made my mouth water! But I chose to bake the Apple and Feijoa Crumble Pie, as our two feijoa trees have provided us with an abundance of feijoas this season, so having a new recipe to use some of them in was very welcome!

Apple and Feijoa Crumble Pie: For this pie, the fruity filling is laid on a base of shortcrust pastry. The crumble, made from rolled oats and shredded coconut, is gently spiced with cinnamon. The pie is baked until the filling is bubbly and the crumble is golden brown. It was absolutely delicious.

Easy as Pie is a book all pie lovers will come back to again and again. Wendy Morgan’s relaxed approach to pastry and pie making is very appealing, and with so many easy and delicious pies to bake, we are spoilt for choice!

Reviewer: Lyn Potter

Bateman Books