We've been busy reviewing Maverick Books' new Junior Fiction titles this week (click through to see what we thought), including Alice Hemming's Rickety Rocket, which features three stories. In one of them, Spacy Stacey and her friends go for a picnic on Picnic Planet, where their food is stolen by the naughty space bunnies ! We loved the imaginative description of the picnic feast :
p93 Stacey put up a purple parasol and they spread the red checked picnic blanket beneath it. They opened the hamper and laid out the tasty treats on colourful plates. As well as the giant jelly, they had fresh bread, Starmite sandwiches, crunchy vegetable sticks, starman pie, pizza pizzazz and fizzy pop. They each had a comfy cushion, a star sprinkled napkin and plastic knives and forks.
Well, as I had plans to use up my overripe peaches from my jam-making in a pie, I decided it would be fun to create ... spaceman pie !
Spaceman Pie (aka Peach & Berry Pie)
ingredients :
about 10 peaches (I had a lot to use up, you could use less)
a good handful of wonder berries (mixed berries)
a sprinkle of brown sugar
a few knobs of butter
a pack of ready-to-roll pastry (shortcrust, flaky, whatever you like - you can make your own if you prefer)
Peel and roughly chop the peaches - they were very ripe so I just pulled the skin off with my fingers. You could always leave it on though if your peaches aren't so ripe. Now, as this was a Spaceman Pie and not just a regular peach pie, I thought it needed something a bit exotic and magical-sounding. Looking around the kitchen for inspiration, I came across a bag of Forest Feast Dried Wonder Berries - perfect ! Behind this exciting name is hiding a mix of cranberries, goji berries, physalis and blackcurrants, but shhh, the kids don't need to know that !
Add a sprinkle of brown sugar and dot a few knobs of butter across the top.
Rather than using a boring pie crust, I decided to get a bit creative and use star-shaped cookie cutters to cut out space-themed shapes.
Scatter them across the top of the fruit, brush with a little milk and pop in the oven for about half an hour until the fruit is soft and the pastry has gone golden brown.
The sweetness of the caramelised peaches was nicely offset by the tartness of the berries, but the stars were what got the biggest reaction from the kids !
Linking up with the #readcookeat challenge over at Chez Maximka
What a fab pie! Love the pastry stars. I'd love to have a big helping of your delicious peach pie. :)
ReplyDeleteI thought it would be a nice idea to use a children's book for the #readcookeat challenge this time ! :)
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