So, the last few weeks have been a little hectic to put it mildly. We have just moved house and things have been totally upside down so no time for any baking at all the last few weeks.

I was really keen to claw back a little bit of ‘me’ time and put aside some time on Saturday evening to bake the Sawdust pie which was this weeks Club Baked selection. Tessa from the Cookin Chemist was this weeks host so pop on over to her blog if you want to check out the recipe.

I had never heard of Sawdust Pie before and it didn’t sound entirely appetising, but I figured I’d give it a go. I love both pecans and coconut which are two of the main ingredients, so it couldn’t go too badly wrong…. could it?!

I had first thought to do this as mini ‘tartlets’ but having just moved couldn’t find the tin I was looking for anywhere! Therefore with the bakeware I could find I did an 8″ pie and another small pie with the leftovers!

The first thing I was surprised by was how easy it was to make the pastry. Whenever I’ve needed to use pastry I’ve always just bought the ready made packs. Following the instructions however, this pastry came together really simply. I suspect I put slightly too much water in as the recipe warned that it would seem sticky – but miine didn’t!! ah well it still worked fine and tasted good, I’ll try to improve it next time out.

For the ‘sawdust’ filling it couldn’t be simpler, just gather together the ingredients stir together, and pop in the pie case. I added some dark chocolate chips as suggested and it was delicious. I even had some Graham Crackers I could use – not something you can find easily outside of the US – but I had some I’d brought back as a souvenir from a trip to Chicago (not the normal sort of souvenir I grant you, but came in very handy for this!!).

The small version I took out with me that evening for friends to try out and it went down really well. We didn’t have any bananas to serve it with but the whipped cream did the job. It went so quickly I should have taken the large version! The large version got donated to a recently opened restaurant in town. So if you’re in Brugge and fancy a slice – get down there quickly!!

Sawdust Pie