Blackberry & Apple Pie

 Haven't done a cake post for a while. Today I made a Blackberry and Apple Pie, Gluten Free and Organic, which I realise isn't a cake, but close enough! It started yesterday where I went full Hunter/Gatherer and picked meself some Blackberries🏹! To be honest it was more the Gathering side of things,😏 although I did have to fight off a host of wasps and other fearsome insects, I managed to avoid being stung or bitten! I left plenty for the insects, not least because there were a fair few overripe berries, considering it's not even August yet, they do seem to be appearing earlier each year!! Certainly a good year for em though, there were loads of red uns so probably be out again next week after some more!!

Part of the haul

Pastry is my cooking Nemesis😱, even before going Gluten Free it was a nightmare, since, it's worse.😰😱 The problem isn't so much the making of the pastry which is pretty simple, it's more the rolling out and the transferring it to where you want it! I have discovered the trick of rolling it out between two sheets of clingfilm, which has reduced the swearing significantly😲 but there was still a lot of patching required today😲!! The recipe is a pretty basic one with a couple of egg yolks, butter, the plain flour swapped out for my Gluten Free mix.  I make this with Cassava Flour 50%, Buckwheat Flour 30%,Tiger Nut Flour20%, a couple of spoonful's of Tapioca Starch and a teaspoon of Xanthium Gum. I use this mix for pretty much everything it works well, the Cassava/Buckwheat Ratio is not that critical but the rest seems to be essential!! It's also good with Victoria Sponges !

Ready for the fridge

Rolled Out

The fruit mix, according to the recipe I had glanced at suggested 2 cooking apples and 4 eating apples, with the Blackberries. Unfortunately due to someone, who will remain nameless, forgetting to put any on the shop, I only had  3 Pink Lady apples to play with😰😱!! Ok it was me that forgot the Apples 😏😢😂

Pink Lady Apples seen here Post-Coring but Pre-Peeling

Post Peeling and Chopping

The fruit mix more Blackberries were added later with a bit of sugar!

Shiny new Pie Dish, brought for me at Christmas by my Daughter and shamefully not used until now!!

Managed to wrestle the pastry, into the shiny new Pie Dish

Fruit added!

Application of the lid, didn't go as planned with a dramatic collapse halfway to the waiting pie😢

Some repair work attempted but still looking rustic!

Application of egg white glaze and granulated sugar, along with some artistic camera angles and it's looking much better😁!! 

At this point the instructions were "prick with a fork" I felt Margie's comment " we've got one of them, what's he gonna do with the fork" was pretty harsh😲!!! Anyway, cooked at 200°C (Fan) for 10 minutes then 160°C( Fan) for 35 minutes and we have a Pie!!! Whoop!

Looks pretty good!

Bit of crackage and a slight leak but looks and smells tasty!

With the left over Blackberries and Pastry I made a Pasty, which was looking magnificent until I moved it onto the baking tray! Then disaster struck! I put it in the oven any way!! See result below!!

Looks an abomination!! Tasted blooming nice though warm with a dollop of Ice Cream!

The main event looked a lot better!

Pastry came out quite well, nice bright colour and very good flavour!

Nice with Ice Cream!!

Very Tasty!!!!!!

Beat the Heat!

 Obviously my Welsh Genes don't do well in temperatures above 17C so with a potential 34C on the cards today I felt an early start was in order. Amazingly I managed to get up at ten to five, yes there is one in the morning!! With time of the essence I decided to stay local and do the walk along Bullfinch Lane. It was still warm as I set out, the Moon was looking pretty magnificent!

I turned off the main path at the usual spot, a Green Woodpecker flew into a large Oak Tree but I couldn't winkle it out of the foliage, there were a few Swallows over the paddocks and there were six Linnets on the wires which were nice to see though pics were poor in the pre-sunrise gloom.

Rabbit

Beast in the field, was hoping for a Cattle Egret, not seen one locally as yet!

Wolstonbury Hill

Linnet

 At this point as I followed the path the boundary changed from bramble to a fence as I cleared the Bramble, to see the open view over the fence a Roe Deer coming the way did the same, which is how I found myself eye to eye with a Roebuck,approximately 15 feet away!! Usually I would expect it to bolt, but it decided not to, rather it looked at me with mild surprise threw a variety of poses before wandering off. It may have been the fact that his missus was on the other side of the path, I hadn't noticed but she didn't hang around bounding off immediately !

Roebuck

The Doe doing a runner

A pretty amazing encounter!

At this point The Sun decided to rise, possibly the least spectacular Sunrise I've ever seen!! tried to get a bit arty through the trees!

Sunrise through the trees

Possibly my most atmospheric obligatory HPP Church pic I've managed so far!

I wandered down the lane, Blackbirds, Robins and Dunnocks including juveniles of all and a Song Thrush the best of it!

Young Robin

Song Thrush

I got to the end of the lane where the fields open up, they haven't slashed the hedges this year, which is probably for the best after the battering they have taken over the last few years. This seemed to have improved things, I heard four singing Yellowhammers, saw several Linnets, Whitethroats seemed to have done alright as well. I heard a couple of singing Chiffchaffs as well as seeing several working their way through the hedges. The two fields where the Owl was in the Winter are full of Skylarks though the long grass makes it difficult to seem them on the ground and you know how bad I am at flight shots, though it was nice to see them flitting about, more food flights rather than song flights though I did hear a couple singing. No sign of any Owls, so don't think they hung around to breed hopefully will be back next year.

Skylark the only one I saw on the ground

Yellowhammer

Linnet

Linnet

Common Whitethroat

Skylark

My usual poor attempt at Skylark flight shots, new camera hasn't made a lot of difference

Chiffchaff

As I wandered about I noticed a couple of tiny blobs on a dead tree, the other side of the A23 turned out to be three Woodpeckers, I juvenile Green Woodpeckers and two Great Spotted Woodpeckers! i saw 5 Green Woodpecker in all this morning!

Blackbird

Green Woodpecker and Great Spotted Woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Juvenile Dunnock

Starling

Swallow

With 8 o'clock fast approaching and the weather turning Scorchio!! I decided to head home before I melted !! One of the best days I've had locally for a while, shows the benefit of an early start, not sure what has happened to the farm at the bottom of Bullfinch Lane, the hedges haven't been cut and the fields don't have animals on them this year, some respite for the wildlife, hopefully if someone else takes over they will be sympathetic to the wildlife!

In other news our Swifts continue to delight and frustrate in equal measure, we not exactly sure what is going on in our box, we see adults coming and going but no real sign of any youngsters, others in our scheme are reporting noisy young-uns in their boxes, with them sticking their heads out as well, we are thinking that ours may not have started as early as we thought or possibly the first lot failed and they are trying again, we did find an egg with a dead chick still inside underneath the box a couple of weeks ago. Still fun watching them screaming around the box, I have counted over 40 above the village and others have counted 50 plus! Apparently we have 13 occupied boxes in the village!!! 

Swift