This is a recipe inspired by a creation described by Nigel Slater in his book, Eat. It’s a very Christmasy recipe, and he describes spending his entire Christmas Eve listening to carols and rolling, filling, baking, stuffing…..

My life isn’t like that, and so I have to simplify.

Recipe for Christmas hybrid pie

Serves 10

Ingredients

• 500g/1 lb ready-made shortcrust pastry – the best you can find – or use this recipe
• 6 tbsp icing sugar (if you’ve made the shortcrust and added in the sugar to the pastry dough, leave this out) plus another 6 tbsp to make the icing
• 150g/1 cup/5 oz dried cranberries
• 270g/10 oz soft dried apricots
• 270g/10 oz soft dried prunes
• 150g/1 cup/5 oz fat sultanas
• 100g/⅓ cup shelled pistachios
• 150g/7 tbsps apricot jam
• 150g/7 tbsps honey
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp allspice
• 2 green cardamom pods – crushed in a mortar and pestle
• zest of an orange
• zest and juice of a lemon
• 120ml/½ cup marsala
• 300 ml/1¼ cups whipping cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Roll out the pastry on a floured board, sieve over the icing sugar, fold, and roll out again.
3. Line a cake tin with a removable base with the pastry to cover the bottom and about 5 cm/3” up the sides – it shouldn’t be too thick. You should have enough left over to make a lid – throw away anything you have left over at the end – you don’t want the pastry to be thick.
4. Chop the prunes and the apricots to be about the same size as the cranberries (save a few cranberries to garnish).
5. Mix all together in a big mixing bowl and add the sultanas.
6. Roughly chop the pistachios and add those.
7. Add the jam, honey, spices and zest.
8. Stir in the marsala, mix all together well.
9. Fill the pastry with the fruit filling.
10. Cover with the pastry lid and pinch the edges together with the pastry wall below to seal.
11. Pierce a couple of holes in the lid.
12. Bake for 1½ hours, take out and leave to cool.
13. Mix 6 tbsp icing sugar with the juice of the lemon to make icing. Pour over the top of the pie and leave to set.
14. Whip the cream.
15. Serve the pie warm and offer the cream alongside.