I live in a small space in a big city. A small space that when required to hide something my options are sometimes limited. However when I’m not required to hide something, and instead something goes missing that small space can feel quite large. Cavernous even.
You see I lost my cups.
My newly bought cups. I know I had stashed them somewhere ‘safe’ for a small period as I wasn’t quite ready to use them; but when it was time to use them, alas not a cup to be found.
I searched high and I searched low. I pulled everything I owned out and then back in again, only to be repeated again the next day. It was doing my tiny brain in. WHERE did I put those cups!?
If we had a cat I would have blamed whiskers, but we didn’t so the next most likely choice was the pint sized one. Surely she must have put it in a box or something and somehow that same box had grown legs and walked out. Surely it was the only possibility?
So I had to buy more.
The cups were clearly not coming back and we really needed some new drinking cups for the kids. I felt a little embarrassed, but clicked pay and now and a couple of days later, there they were. In all their enamel loveliness again, ready to be drunk from.
Along with the cups, I’ve also been enjoying the baking dishes I bought the first time around as well. I’ll tell you why I love them-
– they’re light weight, which means they don’t have a hefty weight when food is cooked in them like ceramic or glass can do
– they are stackable
– they easily live inside my oven when it’s not being used
– and size wise, I have options. After so many years of no options, I’m loving this one to bits.
When I first considered getting these dishes, I wasn’t entirely sure you could bake in them. I’d always associated enamel ware with camping, or the dogs dinner bowl. Happy to say that association has now changed, you can definitely bake in enamel ware and just quietly…I’m loving doing so.
[My enamelware was bought through the lovely Odgers and McClelland Exchange Stores... *ahem* both times. And yes, the other cups turned up as well. Turns out the pint sized one didn’t hide them in a box, her mother did… I now have ten of these cups.]
Cherry and Rhubarb Pie
farmers market cherries and rhubarb 1000g (roughly half and half)
300g sugar
300mls water
2tbls cornflour
Pastry
150g cold butter
50g sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
300g plain flour
1 tbls cold water
In a pot cook the fruit, sugar and water up until softens. Add the cornflour with a tablespoon or so and add into the mixture. Stir through and cook for a further 5 or so minutes. If there is visabally too much excess water just drain a little off for drinking, this will depend on the fruit your are using. Once cooked, stand this mixture aside and begin on the pastry.
In a blender, pulse flour, sugar and butter until resembles bread crumbs. Tip out to a bowl and add vanilla, egg yolk and cold water. Knead lightly until it comes together to form a dough. Wrap in glad wrap and chill in the fridge for about half an hour. Then roll out for your pie shape.
Pop the fruit mixture in and bake for about 35 minutes at 180C.
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I now have a ‘print green’ or pdf option if you would like this recipe for another time. Just click on the green printer icon below and follow the prompts.
cityhippyfarmgirl 
Glad your cups turned up eventually! I am printing your cherry and rhubarb recipe for my “recipes to try” folder. It sounds delicious.
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Thanks LGV, I hope you like it 🙂
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Beautiful pie, Brydie, matches your enamelware. The guys at Odgers are so nice, aren’t they? I have the Falcon Ware pie dishes in blue – they’ve got slightly higher sides than the ones you bought. Although after I saw your red ones on IG, naturally I had to buy a couple more dishes in red! Can I add one more advantage to them? They wash up a dream in the dishwasher! xx
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They are pretty awesome aren’t they Celia. What’s your favourite thing to cook in them?
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love your pie with the gorgeous decorations..it looks too good to cut into,..and i adore enamel brydie..i remember being quite nervous about the reactions i might get the first time i used some of my enamel plates for a party because most people don’t associate enamel with indoors entertainment..times have changed though and it’s becoming deservedly popular..
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Kitchen fashions are funny aren’t they Jane. On a purely practical level the enamelware is wonderful, and added bonus if I get to be a kitchen hipster in having them. (Although not too much of a kitchen hipster… I think drinking out of glass jars is silly.)
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I’m the same after I have stashednbirthday presents in my bedroom. My son’s birthday was at the end of November and a week before I went through and worked out what was going to be Cheistnas and birthday. Then the night before all I had to do was wrap the last presents for his birthday that I had restashed and I couldn’t find them… I was beside myself as it was only the week before and now I couldn’t find them I thought I was losing my mind. After a lot of frustration and what seemed like forever I did find them and wrapped them so I can relate to your problem. I guess now having lots of cups is a nice problem. Regards Kathy A, Brisbane, Australia
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That is indeed one bonus Kathy. I did think about giving some away, but then decided, nope actually it’d be quite nice having ten of something.
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Such classic cups Brydie, I can see why you were so keen to track them down! The pie looks delicious too – we’ve practically overdosed on cherries since they’ve come into season and decided not to buy any at the markets yesterday – I’m regretting this now that I’ve seen your pie!
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keep eating them! You know that season will whistle on by soon enough and it will be back to madarines. Sooo not the same.
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Made me laugh Brydie, every single time i put something in a ‘safe’ place it’s so ‘safe’ i can never find it. I’ve often thought I should be careful if I ever need a ‘safe’ word given more very poor track record with ‘safe’ places 🙂
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hehehe 🙂 I’m truly happy I’m not the only person who does this. Makes me feel a little less of a silly bugger.
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Hehe I bought similar trays but not from the same store! Isn’t that funny? I do the same with hiding things. I put a memory stick away for safe keeping and now I can’t find it!
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aaah yes, but a memory stick is teeny tiny and you are so very excused for losing one of them Lorraine.
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Doesn’t that drive you mad. You make me feel so much better I thought only I hide things I couldn’t find. Your pie looks perfect.
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Jeez, it sounds ridiculous doesn’t it. “I find things, so I can’t find them”…yep, that’s right 🙂
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I’ve just replaced a couple of baking trays with enamel too -loving how light they are, so much easier to deal with than ceramic too.
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Soooo much easier than ceramic Becs. I figure even if I am brutal with them and they become chipped, I can STILL use them for something else down the track, (not that I plan on being brutal with them.) Heirloom pieces?
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I share your pain on lost things. We don’t have a huge place either, but when something is lost, there are suddenly SO MANY places it could be and it is in NONE of them and it is terribly frustrating! I’m glad you bought a second set of cups though, because they are gorgeous and ditto the pan. If they are light weight and stackable then I love them even more.
As for the pie…that speaks for itself. Gorgeous stuff 🙂
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light weight, stackable, easy to clean…it’s alllll good Kari 🙂
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As someone new to baking I am considering some enamel and was wondering what the general consensus was.
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I’m yet to hear something bad Cath. My grandmother still cooks with some of her enamelware from when dinosaurs roamed… well maybe not that long, but awhile anyway.
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Gorgeous Brydie, I love those cups…all ten of them! I am a fan of enamel ware too, although all of my pieces are old. However, I am tempted to buy some of these new, shiny pieces. I have starting use an enamel baking dish in our wood oven as it is light and easy to handle but also robust enough to handle outdoor cooking.
Your pie looks magnificent. I love your clever pasty patterns.
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Those patterns were an accident Jane, a happy accident. I could be heard giving a verbal commentary as I made it… a rather happy commentary!
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**pastry patterns, sorry
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That pie looks absolutely wonderful. I could really go a piece right now. So very patriotic of you too! Your photography is stunning too! We have rhubarb plants that I discovered hiding at the bottom of the garden, so I’ll be pinning this one!
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Now that’s a winner. Sneaky rhubarb at the bottom of the garden, yes indeed!
(and thank you :-))
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Beautiful photography, with the red and the white. Great texture and shape with the pie cutouts, the wood, and the round cherries. Our house is so dark (we have a lot of evergreen trees surrounding it), it is hard to get good food photos.
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Thanks Katie. One day I will show a photo of the squishy space I do them in and how I try and make it happen. (They certainly don’t always work!) Have you tried using a simple piece of white cardboard to bounce some light?
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Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll have to play around with it. Before I started blogging, it never crossed my mind that food bloggers use “props”, just like “real” photographers in magazines. Part of me says, “oh, but that is fake then; I would like to capture it in my house as it really is”, but then I get jealous when I see beautiful pictures like these!
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Katie your photos are lovely, keep doing what your doing 🙂
For the photos I see it as using what you’ve got to your advantage. The white cardboard I use is an A4 size and I think came out of a package, nothing exciting but it helps bounce a bit more light when the shadows are too deep. I also never take shots at night, (or very rarely) which is why you don’t often see any dinner shots, (especially in winter!)
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I am coveting your enamelware. It is gorgeous. Lovely pie & beautiful photography. Love everything about this post.
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I highly recommend the enamelware, actually and the cherries. Anything with cherries is a good thing.
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Great photos and I like those dishes!
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Thanks Jane 🙂
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If I want to find something I have lost I only have to buy a new one and miraculously, (it can have been lost for years at this point…) it will reappear. The faeries on Serendipity Farm are a malicious mob of tricksters ;). I LOVE those cups! I am a sucker for a graduated slope (unless I have to walk up one and then I keep my enthusiasm in reserve for the “final push”). I remember my mum using enamel. The only problem she had was that it is lightweight and if you have problems with temperature control (say using a wood fired oven) things can easily burn in it. A regular oven takes away that problem and enamelware isn’t just for camping any more, as your obviously gorgeous enamelware attests. Maybe we could call it “glamping” now? ;). Cheers for the site. Off to peruse and drool. Personally, narf7 is a sucker for a nice bowl. Bowls are my fetish of choice. I have cupboards full of them and a long suffering husband who now knows better than to say “don’t you have enough ALREADY?!!!” 😉 You can NEVER have enough bowls…and now I think I will add “you can never have enough graduated sloped enamel cups”. They should pay you for selling their wares for them so succinctly 🙂 Love the pie but Stevie-boy is one of those people (fools) that don’t like…(don’t like is too mild a word) err… is hugely averse (HATES HATES HATES) rhubarb so I will most wistfully wave goodbye to that gorgeous pie. Kudos on the deco by the way. Most scrumptiously and attractively presented. I might have even fooled Stevie-boy with its prettiness but he usually takes a (suspicious) sniff of things that I present to him with “unknown components” (especially when I say “just try it and see if you like it” without actually telling him what is inside…he is well aware of my experimental tendencies “white bean brownies anyone?” 😉 ) but he can smell rhubarb from a mile away so NADA is most probably the amount of times that narf7 is going to cook this pie. Cheers for the vicarious share though ma’am. Hope you and your family aren’t roasting too much in this heat 🙂
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Not too hot (so far) here Narf, and I’m hoping it will stay that way. Over 30 days don’t agree with me at all. Makes me long for your beautiful Tasmanian winters.
Now Steve what’s going on?? No to rhubarb? Oh the horror!
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I was raised on fresh rhubarb and guess what? I bought a couple of tiny babies from the $2 a pot plant stand a few months ago that I walk past with Earl (the dog) in the mornings. I gave one to my grateful daughters and I kept one hidden behind other potted plants until the wallabies chewed the leaves down to a stump and I thought it was dead 😦 It came back (tenacious little things) and so it is now planted amongst the spuds and pumpkins up in my veggie garden and Steve has NO idea that it even exists 🙂 I remember being given sticks of raw rhubarb to eat with a bowl of sugar to dip them in. I don’t think I will continue that habit but I will be making my mum’s UBER explosive rhubarb champagne (that Steve drank in happy ignorance 😉 ) to celebrate its pink perfection 🙂
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That looks so cool AND tasty!
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Do you a slice on a paper plate Greg? 😉
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What a beautiful post Brydie. Your cooking and photography make me swoon. Thank you for kindly mentioning us and your warm words. I’m glad you are enjoying the enamelware. It is a delight to cook with, practically and aesthetically. I reach for it every time now. The stainless steel cookware may even have cobwebs on it.
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A big yes to cobwebs. I did think about getting rid of all my other baking assortments altogether. There wasn’t that many to begin with and I really don’t think I’ll ever use them again. Like you said, practically and aesthetically, winner.
Tell me does everyone that ever buys from you just rave about them? I can’t imagine a single complaint.
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Lovely flavours indeed Brydie and glad it all worked out 🙂
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sounds lovely
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I am always losing purchases- I misplace them immediately upon arriving at home and only find them after giving up looking! And the pie- OH my the pie is beautiful- and I would so love to have a piece. I will return to this post this spring and summer!
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