In the run-up to Halloween, it's fun to get into the spooky spirit of the season, we love sinking our teeth into a theme and so we decided to create this Hocus Pocus inspired pie. We always loved the original 1993 ‘Hocus Pocus’ movie and among its most memorable props is Winifred’s spell book with its 3d eye.
Halloween isn’t just for kids, who doesn’t like a warming pie at this time of year? This pie hack is perfect for all ages, it can serve as a fun adult Halloween recipe or a hearty meal for the little ones to give them the stamina needed for the hours of trick or treating ahead.
It was devilishly easy to concoct…
We started with a cook-at-home pie from our local butchers ‘Radfords of Sleights’, we loved their rectangular shape which looked just like ‘The Book’.
For the eye, we hard-boiled an egg and chopped it in half. We then made an opening in the centre of the pie and popped the egg into it with the round white outside of the egg facing outwards.
We then cut two semi-circles out of ready-rolled short-crust pastry, these are for the eyelids so we made sure they were wide enough to reach from one side of the egg to the other. We used a little bit of milk to join the pastry to the pie, making sure to overlap the egg just slightly at the top and bottom.
We used a knife to make the spooky stitch lines and let a few of the stitches pierce through the pastry to create vents which allow the steam to escape when cooking.
We then washed the top of the pie with milk and baked it.
Once cooled we painted the centre of the eye using food colouring. To make the eye look even more realistic, when you are painting the iris leave a little bit of the egg white visible to act as a highlight.
Have fun... it's all just a bunch of hocus pocus!
Lucy + Marie x
