"pork pie" news and stories

My husband and I were watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the other day and there was a question that stuck with me. What type of hat is named for it's distinctive shape? The answer turned out to be a pork pie hat. I had never heard of such a thing and couldn't figure out what made it "distinctive" enough to be named after pork or even pie. Once I looked it up online (what did we do before Google? Lived in oblivion, I suppose), I recognized it right away. I now understand the correlation between the hat and shape of a particular meat pie but I still couldn't get the silly name out of my head. So, naturally, I decided to make a cake.

I started by taking a 6 inch round, cutting it in half and standing each on its side with the bottoms together to make the body. I used my smallest mixing bowl for the head, some mini-cupcakes for a nose and feet and a pyrex ramiken for the pie. The entire thing needed a little carving here and there. The edges of his back were rounded out some, the head cut off a bit to make the neck shorter and the bottoms of the feet flattened so they would snug up next to him better. I inserted a toothpick to help hold his nose in place and went to work making him pink. It takes longer than you think to cover a pig in hot pink buttercream icing using a star tip. If I did it again, I'd probably just ice it and flatten it out to make it easier but I do like the texture contrast between the pig and the smooth fondant of the accessories.

More piggy after the jump.

Following my post on the Pork Pie Society and the Pork Pie Awards Lindsey left a comment requesting recipes so she can make her own. A little research and here are a few to try. Let us know how you get on; perhaps they will be good enough to enter the awards!

Slashfood Ate Pork Pie Recipes (not all are raised pies)

1. Recipe from The Foodie
2. The BBC has a recipe by Rick Stein
3. LLoydich supplies a recipe that includes anchovy essence
4. Big Ray's Pork Pie recipe appears on All Recipes
5. There is a Canadian Pork Pie Recipe (Tourtière) on Recipe Goldmine
6. CDKitchen has a recipe
7. Melton Mowbrey featured on eLook
8. and another appears on Cook It Simply

Did you know that there is a Pork Pie Association? Me neither. But there is!

It's founding is a long and frankly uninteresting rambling story of blokes in a gym casting envious glances over a fellow's home-made pork pie. This was back in the early 1980's but Pork Pie Appreciation Society holds weekly meeting in the Old Bridge Inn, Ripponden, Yorkshire every Saturday. Just in case you are passing... 

More interesting is that each year the Association holds an annual Master Pork Pie Maker Competition, the 14th such event is to be held on the 25th March at the Old Bridge Inn.  Last year the winning pies were made by Cryer's of Halifax (3rd place), Middlemiss's of Otley (2nd) and Wilson's of Leeds (1st).

 

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