Our mouth-watering top 10 for British Pie Week

Our mouth-watering top 10 for British Pie Week

9 March 2016

Around £1 billion is spent on pies in the UK every year, with £145 million of that being on pork pies alone. 75% of Britons say they enjoy a pie at least once a month. As it's British Pie Week, we're sharing our top ten favourite classic pasties and pies.
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British Pie Week - Our top ten pies For Britons, pies are an obsession; we eat almost seven million of them every week. It's hardly surprising, then, that British Pie Week was trending on Twitter on its first day this year.

Around £1 billion is spent on pies in the UK every year, with £145 million of that being on pork pies alone. 75% of Britons say they enjoy a pie at least once a month.

Melton Mowbray, home of the pork pie, is staging the British Pie Awards and the Great British Festival of Pies during this year's pie week. Pies have an interesting history. The earliest reference to a pie as food was in 1301. Until the 16th century, pies contained meat or fish - we did not have fruit pies until Tudor times. The crust was originally designed just for cooking. It was generally given to the poor, and was not eaten by the rich.

The pasty came along at roughly the same time. Its history goes back to the 13th century as a food of the rich - generally filled with venison, beef, lamb, or eels. It became a food of miners and farm workers in Cornwall in the 17th and 18th centuries, one end filled with a savoury filling, the other end with a sweet fruit filling.

As it's British Pie Week, we're sharing our top ten favourite classic pasties and pies which you could try out in one of our vintage rectangular bakers. 1. Pork pie - the dish which made Melton Mowbray famous, our favourite for a picnic or a Ploughman's Lunch.

2. Shepherd's pie - Britain's most-cooked pie at home, a perennial classic. Get our recipe here.

3. Steak and ale pie - with or without mushrooms, it's a tea-time treat.,4. Beef and onion pasty - a year-round staple, see our family-friendly recipe here.

5. Mince pie - it wouldn't be Christmas without them. Tudor folk thought it lucky to eat one for every day of the 12 Days of Christmas. Our recipe can be found here.

6. Fish pie - a great combination of white and smoked fish under a creamy mash topping, a family favourite. Here's our version.,7. Apple and blackberry pie - while we love traditional apple pies, the addition of blackberries makes this dish even more special.

8. Game pie - can contain venison, partridge, pheasant, and rabbit. Wonderful served with a creamy celeriac mash.

9. Cheese and onion pasty - add some leeks for extra crunch, and flavour with two cheeses.

10. Stargazey pie - the traditional pie made with herrings and shortcrust pastry is a West Country favourite.