Anyone bake pies?

[THERESA]

Continuing with the 'homecooked' theme, my lot love pies (meat or fruit). I know they're not particularly healthy but obviously home made would be better for a treat! Any tips/good recipes? Especially concerned about a 'nice base' and not a soggy one!

Ooh I'll watch with interest as I 'attempted' a pie last week and it was truly truly AWFUL...

i love be-ro.com for baking stuff. this shows you how to bake a flan base without it going soggy - click on flan basics on list down right side of screen

Erm...rarely. If I do a meat pie I tend not to put a base on it - just a top. Fruit pies I bake blind first (put a circle of greaseproof paper on the bottom, weigh it down with specialist baking beans if you are a Nigella type, lumps of offcut pastry if you're me) and bake it for...ooh..15 minutes? You can also glaze the base with egg yolk I think and prick holes in it with a fork and that is suppose to stop it going soggy. And I can make pastry but that makes the whole thing even more laborious so I tend to buy ready made. Delia's good for traditional recipes - try local library?

Oh and Delia says always use a tin, not a ceramic dish - for less sogginess.

Why are homemade pies not healthy???

I make steak pie as follows:

Coat Cubed steak in plain flour and brown in a little olive oil.
Once browned, cover with water, chuck in a bay leaf and a teaspoon of cumin and bring to boil.
Cover and Simmer for half an hour or so (longer for some types of beef).

Then add 2 leeks chopped and 2 carrots chopped and a beef stock cube. Simmer for another 15mins.

Place in a pie dish and cover with puff pastry (as thick as you like). Brush pastry with egg or milk.

Cook in at hot oven (gas mark 6) for 30mins or until golden brown.

YUMMY and healthy too! For younger kids you can use reduced salt gravy granules instead of the stock cube.

Delia Online - put pies in search box!

Sorry, nothing useful to contribute except to say that steak pie and cherry pie are my dream foods .

no - I only eat them - as do many Wiganers, in fact there are none left because of that lot!

ALL TOGETHER NOW:

Who ate all the pies
Who ate all the pies....

...and so on.

Can't get that song out of my head after seeing this thread!

Thanks everyone, suppose I've no excuse now have I? I'm full of good intentions.......!

we also do lots of pies (mmmmm). As everyone has said really, as a rule we don't bother with pastry on the bottom for savoury pies (just the top) but we do pastry on the bottom and top for sweet pies.

If you haven't got a pie dish yet (for sweet pies), I would get a deep metal one. Ours isn't deep enough and the fruit is always oozing out the top (probably because we put too much filling in, us greedy guts).

Well I make pies and my main one is meat and potato pie. I cube braising steak and add chopped onion, mixed herbs, maybe garlic, worcester sauce and water and cook for a few hours in slow cooker. Then I put on hob and add chopped mushrooms and thicken the sauce with cornflour (used to use gravy granules but not healthy). Meanwhile chop potatos (with scrubbed skins on) and boil (needs to be a bit more than parboiled).
I make shortcrust pastry and give it a base and use a ceramic dish so breaking all the rules. But it is very popular. As healthy as pies get IMO.

Need to allow an air vent in crust to allow steam to escape.