Elderflower and Blueberry cupcake pies.

This is true alchemaic baking, inspired by a reduced to clear item at Sainsbury's. They had some filo pastry reduced to 90p so I picked it up, along with my odd collection of things (it wasn't a planned trip you see) and spent the rest of the time walking about the shop just thinking about what I could do with it.

Elderflower-Bluberry cupcake pies.

Stay with me, I know what you are thinking, cake in a pie? Yes please! Well they tasted really good, have no paper cake cases to throw out (so eco-friendly???) and here is the recipe for you. 

First make a basic 2 egg sponge mix.

Cream together 4oz of butter with 4oz of soft brown sugar until it is light and fluffy. Break 2 eggs into the mixture, stirring well after each egg. Then sift in 4oz of Self-raising flour and mix until just incorporated, try not over mix. At this point I glugged in 3 sloshes of elderflower cordial. I know they aren't precise measures so basically just add it a bit at a time until you can taste the elderflowers. The flavour isn't terribly strong so don't worry if it's slight, it's more of an accent in the cake, as vanilla would be, the icing is where the flavour really is.

Unwrap the filo pastry, and spread out each sheet on a cleaner worktop. Brush it with melted butter and then put the next sheet over the top. Brush again with melted butter and add a final sheet. 

Taking a sharp knife, cut the large, 3-layered sheet of filo into 6 squares/rectangles. Use each to line the holes in a  muffin tin, repeat this for the last 6 holes so you have a 12 hole tin lined with filo pastry. Brush the edges with more melted butter.

Put in 1 tsp of sponge mix into each case, then pop in 4 blueberries and 1tsp of sponge mix more on top. Bake at 180C for about 15 minutes or until the sponge is golden brown and springy to the touch.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool, then take them out of the tin.

Make a quick glace icing, using 175g of icing sugar and slosh in elderflower cordial until you have an icing which coats the back of a spoon. Drizzle it over each cake/pie and let it set.

Then enjoy!

I took them to a play read-through today and the director and rest of the cast really enjoyed them! Have a go, they are very Summery and if you took away the icing you could serve them warm with custard (everything tastes better with custard I say).  Another twist would be to make a frangipani sponge using ground almonds, and make a Bakewell version.