Spring is inspiring for delicious Berry pie´s.

My family loved berries.. IN finland we have thing called every man´s rights, it means anyone can just walk in to forest and start picking berries they see and take them home from there.. We have had a problem of having too much berries left in to forests so it gives you an idea how much we have them..

My Mum used to love going to forest and picking berries ( I hated it by the time.. would love it now though..)  and we would put them to freezer so that we have berries for whole winter, all natural Bilberries, Cranberries and what ever we found.

My Grandmother had huge bushes of Black Currant (which I did not appreciate when I was child but would love them now..) and she made us juice by boiling them in hot water, using her special juicing machine.

So lot of berries.. in baking, juicing anything really.. or just eating them raw just like that.. they are fantastic. It has given me a habit of always having a frozen berries in my freezer, almost like having my secret "just in case" berries ready if I need them for anything. obviously we where using berries through the whole winter and in spring started doing more and more pie´s and everything from them to actually use all the last summers berries!

I did fantastic Berry Pie just yesterday and this is how it happens..

Start by putting your oven on 160c and Put big spoonful of butter to dish before you put it in oven to allow it to melt there so that when you take it out, it is hot and when you pour in dough your pie is starting to cook right away.
Put  dish you are using to make your pie int he oven to heat and melt the butter.

You need:

For pie base:
- 2 Big Eggs
- Sugar (as much as Eggs.. you brake eggs to glass and take second glass, same size and pour in sugar to same level.)
- Gluten Free, Self raising flour (1.5 times the mount of Sugar.) 
- 2 tbs salty butter soft
- Ground Cardamum (small spoonful)
-Vanilla Sugar (small spoonful)

For topping:
- Berries (any kind of but I like to use mix of little everything, smaller the better)
- 1 Big Egg
- 250g Quark (it is one plastic cup you can buy from any super market)
- Vanilla Sugar
- Ground Cardamum

Pie Base:
Start by whisking eggs to smooth foam and add sugar in and whisk more so that it forms a nice thick light yellow foam, add cardamum and Vanilla sugar. Fold in the flour, you should in the end have mashed potato looking dough where you then in the end mix butter. ( it it is too loose add little more flour) Pour your dough in to cake mold you are using and even it out gently.

Sprinkle on top of dough your chosen berries

BAKE, till dough has raised nicely and you can see that it keeps it´s form.

When cake is baking in the oven, you make topping:
Mix 1 Egg and Quark add 1small spoonful of Vanilla sugar and similar mount of Cardamum.
Mix all together really well, so that it is nice light yellow custard type of thick sauce, and pour it on top of pie that you have taken from oven and put it back to oven to bake the Quark too. You may add few more berries on top of Quark if you wish, just for the look.

Bake till Quark looks baked, it may have to cool down before it is set more steadily but shoudl be fine if it looks little golden brown from here and there, or that it feels it is set when you gently try it with your fingers.

Enjoy your pie!

Afternoon Tea at Kensington Palace Orangery

My Better half took me to Surprise afternoon trip and we went to Kensington Palace Orangery.
I had wished to visit there for long time and had rather high hopes it will be amazing.. Look, it is Kensington Palace after all.

We had done booking, and where taken to very nice table, calm location, not noisy, warm, and all nicely waiting there us to arrive. We made our Order, I took Gluten free Royal Afternoon Tea with Pim´s and my hubby took Royal Afternoon tea with Champagne. I wanted especially taste Kensington Earl Grey.
Tea arrived, it was fantastic, and I liked the taste of bergamont in my tea a lot and Pim´s was nicely done too.. but then arrived rest..

What is going on in cooks head in Kensington Palace Orangery??

Instead of nice normal sandwiches (that person next to me got 4 pieces) I got one bred roll that was spilt half. It was VERY dry, and almost like trying to eat foam mattress ( not that I have ever tasted one but I assume it is much like that) with very little filling, so all you actually tasted was miserable bred. WHY don´t they get just normal toast from Waitrose or where ever and use it and make same sandwiches as normal ones? It would not be great effort.. then Scones.. My better half got 2 of those and I had one that was hard as a rock, it had too much sugar as it was so sweet that eventually I was eating those upper half of my left over bread with Jam and clotted cream rather than Scones and bread was horrid may I remind you.. ( and yes, I am still taking about Kensington Palaces Orangery Royal Afternoon Tea)
So basically I we payed full price from tea, and got half a mount of bread and one that was served was horrible, as well as scones where so bad that when tried to split it it went to pieces and then when try to taste it it was so sweet you can possibly not eat it. ( It was sweeter than desert cakes) Thing that is worth of mentioning where cakes. I had marvellous chocolate cake and Orange cake and they where fantastic.. so anyone with Celiac.. Just order cup of tea and cake.. as anything else is not worth of eating. It is sad as with very small changes gluten free tea could be equally appealing than normal one.
(Hint for the cook, do not use as much gluten free flower when you bake, 80% of normal mount is enough, other wise you end up things that are VERY dry, and hard.. also.. if you can´t make scones, go and by proper ones from supermarket)

Orangery started to quiet down in the evening

My company was best possible, it was lovely surprise from him, and place is wonderful and he said he´s sandwiches where fine and tea was tasty. Service was polite ( like it should be) and My tea and cakes where marvellous.

Look at the china.. I loved them!