The facts were these…

If you ever watched and loved the show ‘Pushing Daisies’ then welcome to this very niche club. This quirky, Wes Anderson style TV show was a favourite of mine as a child that consequently had a bigger impact on my personality than I first realised. Rewatching it now as a 22 year old in a pandemic, who does a lot of baking and loves the eccentric you can really see the influence of this show shining through. Although I don’t have the power to bring dead things back to life I do have the skills to bake pies and so here we are. This is the first in the series of pies from ‘the pie hole’ (I don’t know how many in total, but for now let’s go for one per episode). In Season 1, Episode 1 aka ‘pie-lette’ we hear Emerson Cod ask Olive Snook for a slice of three plum pie à la mode.

Olive: Every day I come in, I pick a pie, I concentrate all my love on that pie. ‘Cause if I love it, someone else is gonna love it, and y’know what? By the end of the day, I’ve sold more of those pies than any other of the pies in the bakery.

Emerson: [humoring her] Yeah? What pie do you love today?

Olive: Rhubarb.

Emerson: [flatly] I’ll stick with Three Plum. Á la mode.

I could have quite easily done rhubarb pie but I know that’s one that crops up again in later episodes so it may be revisited. This one however, turned out to be delicious! Plum is one of my favourites so was a winner for me with crispy pastry and a jammy filling.

Three Plum Pie

Serves 10 (roughly)                 Takes 1hr ( + 40 mins chilling time)

Ingredients

For the pastry:

225g Butter (room temperature)

50g Golden caster sugar

2 Eggs

350g Plain flour

1tsp Cinnamon

1 Egg yolk (for egg wash)

For the filling:

1.25kg Plums (3 varieties)

110g Golden caster sugar

30g Soft dark brown sugar

3tbsp Cornflour

1tsp Cinnamon

Method

1. For the pastry beat the butter and sugar together then add in the eggs
2. Add the flour and cinnamon a bit at a time and as  a dough starts to form use your hands to mix. Cover the pastry with cling film and pop in the fridge to chill for 40mins
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C/ 160°C fan
4. Chop up your plums and place in a bowl with the sugars, cornflour and cinnamon. Mix through.
5. Once the pastry is chilled roll out two thirds of the dough and lay it into your pie dish making sure you push it tight into the edges. Leave some pastry over hanging as it will be trimmed later.
6. Pour the plum and sugar filling into the pastry case. And brush the edges of the pie with water/egg wash.
7. Roll out the final third of the pastry and place it on top of the pie as a lid. Trim the pie edges and pinch them with your fingers or crimp them with a fork. Cut out a pattern or hole in the lid for steam to escape when cooking.
8. Egg wash the pie and sprinkle with some golden caster sugar.
9. Pop in the oven for 40 minutes or until golden and cooked through.
10. Leave to cool a little then cut a wedge and serve à la mode (with ice cream) or with custard!

lots of love,

Alice x