My children live on a diet of BlackBerry. Every day they exercise their fingers, tap, tap, tap, so they can indulge in this fruity fascination. I am sure they have become addicted. Even in the car, their heads are down as they gorge themselves on news and views from the Princess Pals, who they have just left behind at the school gates.
I have tried to limit them to only so many portions a day — after all, over-consumption could lead to me blacklisting their BlackBerry and if they don’t upgrade to a new version, they won’t be able to feast on new and even more exciting varieties. Looking on the positive side, at least their BlackBerry Messenger is free, which makes this habit so much easier to stomach. However, I reckon they must burn extra calories from all this messaging, — they write whole chapters while I am still getting to grips with predictive text.
So this week’s message is: “Come down for dessert ,we are having your favourite.” Well, if you can’t beat them, blackberry them.
Serves 8
Ingredients
● 375g ready rolled shortcrust pastry
● Baking beans
● 20g unsalted butter
● 100g caster sugar
● 520g cut-up eating apples (Gala are great)
● 1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract
● 300g blackberries
Meringue topping
● 3 large egg whites
● 160g caster sugar
Method
● Pre-heat oven 200ºc
● Grease an oven-proof flan dish 25cm X 5cm deep.
● On a floured board, cut the pastry to fit the bottom of the dish.
● Using the remaining pastry, roll out again and fit along the sides of the dish forming your pie crust.
● Place baking beans in the bottom of the pie and bake blind for 10 minutes.
● Remove from the oven to cool and lower the oven temperature to 180ºc.
● In a frying pan, melt the butter and sugar, add the apples and cook for 15 minutes turning from time to time.
● Halfway through, add the vanilla bean extract.
● Place the cooked apples and blackberries in the pie and bake for approximately 35 minutes
● Whilst this is cooking, whisk egg whites until stiff and slowly add the sugar to make the meringue mixture.
● Remove the pie from the oven and spread the meringue mixture over the top decorating it by swirling with a fork.
● Bake for approximately 20 minutes.
● JP’s Notes: Caution, eating too much could add to your curves!
