Never Knew Pork Pies Could Be So Interesting or Demanding

....All blooming day they took.
First the slicing and tiny dicing of pork shoulder and unsmoked back bacon, then the choppy choppy slicey fingery of slippery oniony.......then a handful of really fresh parsley snipped with tears as I foolishly womanly asked Hairy Suit and Mr Horsehound if the aforementioned parsley had a brain? No was the reply. A central nervous system? Again negative.
I mixed on.

Then the making of Hot Water Crust Pastry. Lol.
If ever there was a pastry invented by God to test our mixing skills it is surely HWC.
Plain flour and bread flour were mixed in a big bowl then butter was quickly rubbed in. Lard was then melted slowly to avoid spitting and obvious burning of skin then some water was boiled to which a little salt was thrown in then the cooled lard was poured in. Didn't look very appetising I must say. But I plodded on, stopping momentarily to re-apply some lipstick.

Watery lardy goo was poured onto buttery flours and quickly drawn together by a big fork and then when it formed a lump was tipped out onto old worktop to be smoothed to a smooth dough. There's something incredibly soothing about smoothing.
Some minutes later it was a ball. (meanwhile the pork mix was resting up)
Now the part we dreaded,, me mostly, the boys deciding it'd be more fun to play with phones and cameras. Bless Grr.

Dough split into two pieces, one large the other smaller.

Rolled out and twelve discs cut out with pastry cutters. Fitted ever so sweatingly gingerly into giant oiled muffin tin:)
Because the dough is stretchy it was easyish to get the dough way up the sides of the cups, what I didn't forsee were bubbles of air rising like wintery nipples.....drove me potty.
But after a long time the tins had their doughy inserts.

Now the bit we'd all been waiting for....the dropping in of spoonfuls of meat.

There was plenty.
Pink meat with specks of apple green parsley and sparklets of onion shards (I like that description) soon sat deep and still in the pastry. Now the top pastry.....Simple to roll and cut out, it soon hid the meat.
For the meat to breathe (!) and air escape I had to punch a hole in the top of each pie so used my inventiveness and grabbed one of mum's unused ( I think) straws.

Brushed over with beaten egg, then studied so closely by the three of us that our noses almost kissed the pork pie, after probing we stood erect.......well satisfied.
Into the oven they went.....

Tea, cake, chatter yadder then out they came. Oh I forgot to say that Hairy Suit took a diabolical liberty (wots noo) by pinching some meat and pastry and making himself a little meaty pastry purse...


Now the part I was most worried about...The dribbling in of gelatine. We did have  a few minor pouring mishaps, but I, Gloria, soon had it solvedo. I found an icing funnel at the back of the draw...

So with the warm gelatine in a small blue jug I poured it in via the plastic funnelthing. It worked.

Now the pies are resting in the fridge till tomorrow when all will be revealed.

Also baked today an Orange and Sultana Traybake. A lot less stress:)