How to make Chicken, Cheese and Bacon Mini Picnic Pies

A delicious chicken, cheese and bacon mini picnic pie sat waiting to be nabbed by a passing foodie!

"A pie is a creation, a picnic is an event." - Janet Clarkson

This recipe - originally taken from BBC Goodfood Magazine - is perfect for batch cooking to impress your friends and family at a picnic. They keep for about 3 days so they also make really fun work lunches. These little pies could also make super quick lunches for the week if you have a hungry family clamouring for nourishment.

These little chicken, bacon and cheese pies are superb hot or cold and you can mix up the fillings once you get the hang of making the base dough. The recipe below makes about 12 pies.

The key to this recipe is around making sure the dough is good and elastic, not too sticky and not too dry. I’ve learned from Paul Hollywood’s excellent book - How to Bake that the trick is not to blindly follow the amount of water in the recipe or bread kit. Dough is very heavily affected by atmosphere, moisture content and even the quality and brand of the flour. As Britain is cold 99% of the time, I also make sure I always use tepid or warm water for the dough, this helps the yeast activate and gives a more reliable prove. When adding the water, look for that perfect point where all of the flour is combined together but it isn’t soggy, I usually add a quarter at a time, pulling the dough together with a spatula until I think it’s right.

I would also say, unless you’re a fitness masochist or a complete traditionalist - don’t knead by hand! There are some amazing mixing machines that come with dough hooks as standard. I’m not a huge fan of bread making machines (they always tend to be cakey), however, a mixer with a dough hook will provide delicious and effort free dough and also then help with other recipes that require mixing too. Much more cost-effective.

Song of choice for this recipe:

Reflections of a sound - Silverchair

Audiobook of choice for this recipe:

Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch

Ingredients:

For the filling:

• 2x cooked chicken breasts chopped

• 100gx of cooked bacon, chopped

• 5x spring onions, diced

• 100gx strong cheddar, grated

• 3tbsp x full fat soft cheese

• 2tsp x English mustard (or half French, half English works too)

• 1 egg - beaten

For the bread:

• 500g white bread flour (I like Allinsons as a brand)

• 10g dried yeast (again Allinsons is very good)

• 10g salt (I use Maldon sea salt)

• 1 tbsp olive oil (plus more for the kneading process)

• 350ml warm/tepid water

Directions:

• Mix the cooked chicken, the bacon, onion, the different cheeses and mustard into a bowl. Season and then mix really well together. Refigerate.

• Make the bread - first weigh out the 500g bread flour into a bowl

• On one side add the 10g yeast and then 10g salt on the other side of the bowl. NOTE - don’t let the yeast and salt touch each other before the other ingredients are added

• Pour in the olive oil, this is to add a little elasticity to the dough once proved.

• Now add the water, add it a quarter of the total amount at a time. After each addition, bring the dough together with a spatula until you have all of the flour incorporated into the dough. At this stage it should be sticky but not sloppy. It’s OK if you don’t add all the water, dough consistency is based on a huge amount of different variables and the moisture level will be different every time.

• Cover with a clean tea towel and put somewhere warm and relatively dry for 2 hours until doubled in size. Don’t place over a radiator or something as directly hot as you will overprove the dough or even cook it!

• Once the dough has risen, knock back the air by giving it another small knead. Shape into 10-12 pieces and cover again with a tea towel and place back to prove a second time. This time leave for an hour until risen again

• Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan) and grease a muffin tin with butter

• Roll a ball out into a 12cm circle and then place in a muffin section. Spoon in the filling - don’t overfill here, the temptation will be strong, resist!

• Fold in the edges of the dough so the filling is covered. Repeat for the remaining balls of dough.

• Brush the dough with beaten egg and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown

• Eat warm or leave to cool and have for lunch over the next few days!