Irritating Soggy Bottoms!
I need your valued advice please.
As you may know, I am useless at making pastry, so every month I stock up on Jusrol Puff and Shortcrust Pastry because we both love nothing better than an occasional freshly cooked Steak,Onion and Ale Pie.
I cannot recall the last time I ever bought a shop bought one in its foil case. I am extremely suspicious of handling and contents of shop pies. Silly I know, but I have heard such horror stories in the past from people that work in their factories.
However, after HWMO bought a Steak and Onion Pukka Pie with Chips for his supper one evening instead of his usual fish and chips, he decided that it was delicious. (I took his word for it). So next time, I bought half a dozen Pukka Pies from Sainsbury's. I know, I know.
Here then is the rub. I preheated my oven, placed the two pies in the centre of the oven on the regulo stated on the side of the pie box and reheated them for the correct time (25 minutes on 190). But when I went to take them out of the foil cases onto the plate, the bottoms looked disgusting!
a clear case of soggy bottom! HWMO ate his without comment but I couldn't touch mine.
So, with the next two, I thought, right, I will try doing them on a lower setting (180) for 35 minutes to give the bottoms longer to cook. NO GOOD! All it did was allow the tops to open up during cooking and I ended up with the filling spilling out onto the baking tray.AND the bottoms were still too soft and undercooked in anyone's opinion.
Last chance with the last two! This time I preheated them on the correct regulo (190) but... I took them out of the foil cases and placed them directly onto the baking tray. Half way through once the tops had browned, I placed their "tin hats" back over the tops to stop them burning and thought, surely they can't have soggy bottoms out of their tin hats!
When done, they were a bit better than soggy bottom, but still too underdone for either our liking, and not at all like when I do my own pies.
Help! Does anyone have a solution to this?. The Pukka Pies are the only pies I would shop buy, but not if they are going to continue to have soggy bottoms. I've practically given up but aside from telling HWMO to go to the chippie if he wants one, Any ideas please? I never have this problem with my own made pies cos I blind bake the bottom shortcrust pasty first before putting in the filling and a Puff Pastry top.but of course, I can't do that with a shop bought one for reheating.
Thanks x