There's always room for pie

I really wanted to get a pie from the Funky Pies stall at World Vegan Day but since I had filled up on Mr Nice Guy cupcakes, Crumbs lemon donut and lunch from the Enlightened Cuisine stall before I saw the Funky Pies stall, there really wasn't any room for pie :(  They were also sold out of the Eezy Chic 'n' Cheezy by the time I did get round to them anyway. Actually I probably could have managed to share a pie a little later in the day, I just couldn't bring myself to fight my way back to the stall through the crowds of people milling around it.

Left with a pie craving, the only logical thing to do is make a pie. We had a couple of friends joining us for dinner who are big fans of their standard mince pie, so I decided to have a go at making a mock mince pie.

For the pie I used:

Pre made pastry sheets (because I am lazy)

Half a bag of TVP dry mince

Mushrooms

Kidney beans

Onion

Cheatin gravy powder

Braggs

Spring Gully Worcestershire sauce

Savoury yeast flakes

Pepper

To make the pie, I greased the pie pans, and lined the pans with a layer of pastry. I've had bad experiences blind baking pastry shells before, so I skipped blind baking this time. 

For the filling, I chopped and fried the mushrooms, onion and beans a little, added in the TVP cup for cup with water. While the pot was coming to the boil I added a couple of spoons of gravy powder, along with a splash of braggs, worcestershire, yeast flakes and pepper to get some flavour into the TVP. Once the water was boiling the TVP took about 5 minutes to soak up most of the liquid and what was left was a nice thick gravy base.

There was easily enough filling for the 2 pie shells, and just enough pastry left to top them. You probably can't see from the pictures but I got a bit carried away fluting the edges of the pies to attach the top pastry.

Baked at 180ºC for about 30 minutes and the pie came out perfectly. The pastry has to be one of the best I have used (and it was gluten free!!). It was perfectly golden and flaky with a great flavour. The brand was Pastry Pantry rough puff.

I was expecting when I cut the pie to have filling ooze everywhere, but the slices held their shape. The pie tasted great too, and got compliments all round.  

For every success there is a failure though. I got this ice cube tray that I love. My fiance hates it, but I love it. It's an ice cube tray made of silicone that makes 4 ice brains. Here is an example of what the ice cubes look like after they are popped out.

Coconut water and orange mango brain freezes

I got what I thought was a brilliant idea of using the tray to make chocolates. Since I had half a block of rice milk white chocolate left, I painted this into the groves in the mould before coating the whole thing with dark chocolate. When it was set I put in some soft caramel I made, and then put some dandies marshmallow in on top, then sealed with chocolate again.

Everything looked like it was working perfectly till I came to pop the brains out. Unfortunately the silicon mould did not want pop straight out and needed to be forced and stretched around the chocolate. I had made the chocolate coating too thin so it just cracked leaving me with a disgusting oozing mess.

Aside from the breaking and the oozing, I actually quite like the affect of the two chocolates together in the mould. They still tasted great too, a sticky messy sugar and chocolate explosion. I will have to try this again, just make the chocolate shells more durable next time.