Orchard Fruit Shortcake - my TwootyFrooty recipe

In previous months, there has been an Irish Foodies Twitter Cookalong where we've made Pizza, Cookies, Fish - I missed out on the Vegetarian one as we were on holiday.  Friday 1st October was deemed Autumn Fruit cookalong and was duly dubbed TwootyFrooty...

My contribution to the event was a sweet pie.  It was really easy to make, but because yesterday was so warm, the pastry started to melt away as I was putting it on top of the fruit, resulting in an emergency freezer visit to chill the pastry so it was workable!  Using a food processor for the pastry makes it an absolute doddle - none of the hardship of rubbing butter & flour together by hand, and it's ready in minutes.  I used a square 9-inch tin for this recipe, but you could use a round one and serve the shortcake cut into wedges.  No matter what tin you use, make sure it's deep as this rises quite high.  If you grease the tin very well, the cake won't stick when you remove it, but a springform cake tin will take care of that issue as well.  The recipe only uses egg yolks, but you can use the whites to make meringue (which I'm planning to do later on this evening)

Orchard Fruit Shortcake

225g Self Raising Flour, sifted
110g Golden Caster Sugar
110g Icing Sugar, sifted
225g Butter, cubed and very cold
5 medium Egg Yolks
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

400g Eating Apples
200g Blackberries
30g Golden Caster Sugar
1 egg yolk, mixed with 1 tsp water

Put your flour, icing sugar, caster sugar & butter into a food processor (using the knife blade attachment) & whizz until it looks like fine breadcrumbs.

In a small bowl, mix the 5 egg yolks & vanilla and then add to the food processor.

Blend it all together until it becomes a soft & sticky dough.

Put a large sheet of cling film on your worktop and drop the dough on top, scraping the residue from the bowl, blade & everything else it touches (it really is sticky!).  Wrap up in the cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 90 minutes.  The colder the dough is, the easier it is to work with it...

When you're ready to make the pie, heat your oven to 190c/Gas Mark 5 and butter your cake tin very well.

Peel, quarter, core & slice your apples and put them in a bowl with the blackberries (use thawed frozen ones if you can't find fresh - but drain them well) and sugar.

Remove your dough from the fridge and roughly divide in two.

Press the smaller half of the dough into the base of the tin, bringing the edges up the tin to make a little collar.

Add the fruit and then roll out the rest of the dough - on a well-floured surface as it's very sticky - until it's slightly bigger than the tin.

Place the dough over the top of the fruit, tucking the edges down into the tin. Glaze the top liberally with the egg yolk & water mix.

Bake for 45 -55 minutes until it's really dark golden in colour, well risen and crusty.  Run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake and then leave to cool.