Diamond Jubilee Recipe - Strawberries and Cream Pie



Jubilee Strawberry and Cream Pie

To Commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee
1952 -2012

  

I felt that I had to do something a bit special for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations. After a bit of thought I decided to put my own spin on the traditional British cream tea - scones with jam and cream.

Pastry:

I decided to make 'pastry' which is a bit more like a scone mix - so that the pie reflects the cream tea theme a bit more.

Ingredients:

125g of self raising flour
A pinch of salt
55g of butter
25g of caster sugar
30-45ml of milk

What to do:

• Put the flour and salt in a large bowl
• Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
• Stir in the sugar and the milk until it resembles a dough that can be rolled out.
• Prepare oven dish/pan
• Roll out the dough to fit the pan.
• Roll out the left over dough and cut six long strips.
• Make the rim of the pie by making two plaits using three of the strips for each.
• Paint the pie with milk using a pastry brush - the milk acts like a glue to help attach the plaits
• Paint the plaits with milk
• (If you want to make a little crown shape out of pastry to cover the plaits join at the top like me you can... but it may end up looking more like a bobble hat...)

Alternatively, make mini pies using a cupcake tray to shape them.

Place pie crust in the oven

Cook at 180 degrees C for proximately 15 mins.

Allow to cool.

Filling:

Ingredients:

Strawberry or Raspberry Jam (Jelly)
200g of cream cheese
100g of caster sugar
A few drops of vanilla essence
Strawberries

What to do: 

• When cool turn the pastry out of the pan
• Spread a layer of jam (jelly) over the base of the pastry
• Now mix the cream cheese, caster sugar and the vanilla essence together.
• Spread a thick layer of the cream cheese topping over the layer of jam
• Decorate with a layer of fresh strawberries.
• Place in the fridge to cool.
• Serve and enjoy the jubilee celebrations!

  

A few pictures from our walk around the park today where we saw lots of birds and jubilee celebration bunting:

Jubilee, Nationalism and Pie

British Nationalism is Sweetie Form!

Recently Britain has become really overtly nationalistic. This is due to the forthcoming Olympics (I have tickets!), the Eurovison Song Contest which was last weekend (in which Britain came last but one... but that was pretty much expected) and this weekends Royal Jubilee celebrations. Even the sweeties are donning the national colours! Recently, whenever I have turned on the news it has shown people running around with the Olympic Flame, golden boats in London or Englebert Humperdink!

The bank holiday weekend has been set for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and street parties. Some streets have really taken it to heart and are fully decked out with bunting and having street parties.

My small contribution to the festivities comes in the form of a sweet pie - a nationalistic pie of course! Below is a sneak peak at the cooling pie crust; waiting to be filled. The finished pie is my take on the traditional British Cream Tea - strawberries and cream themed. The recipe will be in my next post!


 If you look at the platted edging you will notice what looks like a 'bell' shape or perhaps a 'bobble hat' made out of pastry... this is in fact my attempt at a royal crown shape. Oh well it was worth a try!

Jubilee celebration pie crust and mini tart cases made
from leftover pastry