I feel like I have been talking about cooking a lot on the blog in the last few weeks thanks to some sponsored work I received. If you know me well you will know what it means to get contracts like that come in; how they help our family and how most work I undertake is because I feel that it honestly suits me and the family. The last few have been no exception and I have truthfully written about them within our lives, but when work is sponsored it often leaves a bitter taste in the reader's mouth. I suppose the blog world is still not understood and the fact that money is made from writing is weird, when anyone and everyone can do it, but not everyone gets paid. For me, I call myself a journalist and this is my journal. People like it and people pay to appear on it but if you have been following me for a long time you will also see that you get a lot more than just sponsored posts that pay the bills.
Last week I got another contract. My biggest to date which I am not ashamed to share with you. There was a lot of hard work leading up to it and in a way I felt my worth was of value. I have no obligation to share it on here, it was work specifically for INSTAGRAM but the result was something I wanted to share on here. Rather than pretending it was something new and fresh I just thought I would come on and be honest about it.
As you guessed it it is food based, but in fact a first for me and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Autumn is here and my PINTEREST board is full of pumpkin spiced lattes, red leaves, cosy jumper fashion and pies! This recent project contained one of the main ingredients for an autumnal fruit pie which is where the project started in the first place, but it meant that I would be undertaking something I had never done. For me, that is obviously a pressure and I would only usually stay close to doing something I know is good for paid work but alas, Pinterest got me good and this pie was gonna be awesome, at least I did hope it was going to be!
Having no shame, I obviously bought ready-roll shortcrust pastry from the supermarket, and having stewed my apples and blackberries with a small bit of water and a couple of tablespoons of sugar I quickly had all I needed ready and prepped for the building of a pie. Now having never done a fancy pie, I was tasked with making up how you build one in my head. Do you smooth down the filling so that the pastry sits better? Probably. Do you trim the edge pastry that hangs over the tin closely or with a bit of excess? I can now confirm with a bit of excess!!! Questions arose and I just muddled my way through. The saving grace of this whole project is that my boss lent me some fancy fondant icing cutters that not only cut out a shape, but indent the pastry too. I made an abundance of leaves that look very leaf like and it was all down to the cutters. In fact, if the inside of the pie didn't taste good I didn't even care because the outside looked awesome and I was really proud of that!
So after realising that, yes, it was pretty and looked amazing and all the pictures came out great, I needed to actually cook it so it was golden brown and mouthwatering. I put it in the oven at 180° and just watched it for about 40 mins. I can't tell you exactly how long it took, it felt like an age but after half an hour I was really conscious of looking for the perfect brown which would have meant it was cooked but not overdone.
Did I manage it ? I like it either way!
The apple and blackberry pie was a success as you can see and this is really why I wanted it on here. My starting point to my pie making career {which will be long and tasty I hope} and also the starting point to the reason why my Amazon basket is now full of fondant icing cutters!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this bit of work which made me too happy not to share, just for me to simply enjoy again, and again, and again!
*This post was NOT Sponsored!!
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