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Game Pie – Bake Off Bake Along Week 7

It has come to something when a game pie is the easy way out. The tennis cake didn’t look horribly difficult- if you had the time to do it slowly and carefully and had some proper instructions then I am sure it would be doable – but fruit cake is my least favourite cake. I mean, it’s still cake, but I didn’t want to put a huge amount of time and effort into making one. I only know what a Charlotte Russe is because of Jacqueline Wilson’s book, The Lottie Project, and I had neither the time nor the freezer space to attempt it this week.

But game pie? Delicious. I love this sort of thing.

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So, here’s my… well, I won’t call it a masterpiece. There are lots of things I would do differently if I was making it again. I probably won’t make this exact pie next time because game is so expensive, but I will definitely attempt to make something else using hot water crust pastry in the future.

I was irrationally scared of hot water crust, mostly because it’s such an odd pastry and I’ve never made it before. The recipe I was working from said that you had to shape it as quickly as you could before it dried out and started to crumble. I actually think I went too quickly and rushed it, and the pastry would have been fine if I had taken an extra five minutes to make sure it was more even.

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It’s certainly not the prettiest thing in the world, but it did taste great, and considering it was a first attempt with a few new techniques, I am pretty happy with it. I know that Mary and Paul specified that the pie needed to be elaborately decorated, but I am not at all artistic and was also rushing so much with the pastry that I didn’t want to do anything too fancy. So, I just thought… game pie… game… playing cards… playing card symbols… game pie. I know, I know. I will show myself out.

This week, for once, I am simply going to link to the recipe I used rather than writing out my edited version. This is just because I felt so unsure about this challenge that I didn’t feel confident free-styling and putting my own twist on the recipe, and instead followed it to the the letter and the gram. I chose to use rabbit, venison, and pigeon in my pie, along with the pork belly and bacon, purely because it was what I could get my hands on. I would be such a rubbish vegetarian.

So, here is Master Hollywood’s Raised Game Pie. The things we do for this show, eh?

11 thoughts on “Game Pie – Bake Off Bake Along Week 7

  1. Alice

    I’m so impressed you used rabbit, venison and pidgeon! Where on earth did you find those? I just managed to get hold of pheasant! 🙂 Yours looks so good though, and it held together wonderfully. In truth, I was daunted by the hot-water crust too, but it was actually a lot easier than I expected, although lard smells gross in water don’t you think?! Alice xx

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    • Hannah

      I just went to the local butcher in the market! Loads of options – I could have had partridge or grouse too if I wanted. Yes, the lard did smell a bit ugh, but worth it in the end! xx

  2. Cynthia

    Your pie looks absolutely gorgeous! “It has come to something when a game pie is the easy way out”…. definitely my thoughts exactly. As this is my first bake off experience, I had no idea how hard these challenges are going to get… I was just thinking it would be madeiras and biscotti the whole time 🙂

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