Stone Fruit Pie

Summer loving and the trees are heaving with luscious treasures...

Peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots - stone fruits that are synonymous with summer. If you are lucky enough to have mature fruit trees or neighbours with tress loaded with fruit, the possibilities are endless.

My neighbour has plums but you have to be quick, firstly the birds get stuck in and with no sense of respect take a few pecks out of each plum.  Secondly its the neighbours on the other side with their big blue bucket! I hope they drop off what ever treasure they are making...

I am loving these colour combinations 

I took a trip to the local Asian market for my colourful array and for no more than $3.99NZD per bag picked up apricots, white peaches and nectarines. I guess with many things "use it or lose it applies" and this certainly applied for the apricots. I like my fruit crunchy, even on the sour side and once its ripened and gone soft it really doesn't appeal to me. Cooking with fruit is a fantastic way to use up fruit past its best by or even fruit fallen from trees. Apricots with pork or chicken, chutneys, fresh salsa, fruity sauces for ice-cream and smoothies, cakes, loaves, muffins, cup cakes and of course desserts.  

Endless possibilities

My first attempt using stone fruit in a cake was OK, it was basically a carrot cake type mixture (oil not butter) and loaded with cinnamon and ginger. I cooked it in a cute paper cake mould BUT whilst watching "one born every minute" I totally forgot and it had about 15 Min's more time than it needed. Also I couldn't resist cutting into it to try so as far as blogging and photographing it - it just didn't happen!

Colourful, sweet and tart

My second attempt was a lot more successful...
I was asked to make a birthday cake for my partners mum as we were having a birthday BBQ, so using what I had in my fridge - stone fruit pie was my idea. to save time I bought a big 700gram tin of cooked apples and already had the pastry packets in my freezer. For the price and convenience, these are so handy!

The easiest pastry in the world

All I basically did was roll the pastry out and made it fit the base and sides of the spring form dish, mix the chopped stone fruit with a couple of generous tablespoons of brown sugar and mix it with the tinned apples. I used apples mainly because I thought the stone fruit alone was a little bit adventurous for my guests and to stretch it a bit further. 

I lined the bottom of the pie dish BUT in hindsight - don't do this, there is no need with the buttery pastry and the wetness of the fruit and the paper didn't mix!  

All that's missing is the icing sugar...

I used 2 packets of pastry and with the excess made some cute little jammy parcels. These were a hit with both the adults and kids alike - really easy and have that homemade feel to them. I used Ingrid's rhubarb jam from a previous post and it was perfect melted into the crunchy, buttery and sweet pastry. 

Perfect for small hands and adults love them too

What you need

2 packets of shortcrust sweet pastry (I used Edmond's and its found in the freezer section)

Uncooked stone fruit - chopped up and of course stoned

1 tin (large 700grams) of cooked apples

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Spring form pie dish

How to make 

Chop the stone fruit and mix with apples and brown sugar 

Roll out the pastry and fit to the pie dish (I didn't blind bake BUT it may pay to do this?) 

Put the fruit into the pastry and cover with a lid, strips of pastry or even a crumble topping. 

Bake at 180 degrees for about 30 minutes - keep watching the pastry so it doesn't over brown. I put some tinfoil on the pastry edges to stop it browning whilst the rest of the top cooked. 

Delicious with ice-cream