The Great British Bake Off ~ My recipe for beef & ale pie

Today I’m a little later than usual sharing my recipe for the Great Blogger Bake Off, but here it finally is! Today I’m enjoying a delicious beef and ale pie which I’ve made (with a lot of help from my husband – the king of beef!) using a great local ale and tasty seasonal ingredients to create a delicious winter warmer pie with a crispy puff pastry lid. This kind of dish is one of my favourites during the colder months, and you can easily stew up double portions of the pie filling, and have pie one day then casserole the next!

I went to the local farm shop to pick up my ingredients – oddly enough I’ve not yet grown any of these vegetables in my garden, but I now know that they are a must for the veggie patch next year! It was loads cheaper to buy my fresh veg from the farm shop than I had imagined, my carrots were 50p, a massive bunch of leeks were 80p and a big bag of mushrooms were about the same price. As I made my purchases I was even told where the leeks had come from (just up the road) and the name of the chap of grew them (Don)! I made double portions so that hubby and I have a casserole to enjoy tomorrow, and I still didn’t even use up all the veg, so it was a super-cheap way to cook a filling meal!

Ingredients for 1 pie: 1 large or 2 small diced carrots per person, 1/2 onion per person, 1 leek per person, 5 button mushrooms per person, 150g diced stewing beef per person. And for the sauce: a lovely local ale, 1 teaspoon garlic paste, 2 beef stock cubes, 2 tablespoons of flour, bouquet garni (containing rosemary, thyme, sage and oregano from my herb garden), salt and pepper

Toss the beef in the flour and cook in a hot oven-proof pan until browned, set aside. Fry the onions, diced carrots, leeks and mushrooms in a little fry light in the same pan, before adding the beef back in. Add the garlic paste, bouquet garni, beef stock dissolved in enough boiling water to cover the veg/beef and half (or all if you’re making double portions!) of a bottle of local ale. I chose the punchy ‘No Guts No Glory’ IPA from Station 119 complete with gorgeous pin-up girl label (no surprise why hubby likes it so much!). Pop the pan into the oven at 180 degrees for about one hour until the stewing beef flakes apart. Season with salt and pepper to taste then put your preferred number of portions into a pie dish and top with a pastry crust. Bake in the oven for another 30 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.

Okay, so I actually used bought puff pasty for the lid of my pie (argh, I can hear the cries of ‘cheat’ ringing in my ears – it was just a time-saving measure, honest!) but a shortcrust pastry would be equally as nice – here’s my recipe for a easy peasy shortcrust pastry. See, I can make the pastry too… I just didn’t do it this time. When it counts. Oops!

Beef & Ale Pie

The obvious accompaniment to the pie was a delicious glass of No Guts No Glory which we are about to enjoy with our finished pie as we speak! And if you fancy trying out this local Suffolk beer, check out the Station 119 Facebook page. I’ve honestly never tasted such a deliciously rich pie and I love mushrooms cooked in this way! Please let me know if you try out this recipe but for now I’m off to enjoy my steaming-hot pie then watch The Great British Bake Off  to find out what the theme is for next week’s blogger bake off 🙂

Check out all the other Great Blogger Bake Off tart and pie recipes by following the links to these lovely blogs below:

• Queen of Hearts Trio of Tarts by I Love Crafty
• Caramel Butternut Squash Pie by Briar Rose 
• Key Lime Pie by Nic Ooh La La 
• Roasted Pepper Tart by Daisies and DM’s 
• Gluten Free Cherry Pie by Immy May 
• Mini Blueberry Pies by Bumpkin Betty 
• Peach Iced Tea Tart by Hannah Bakes Things