The Head Chef at The Crown Inn in Stoke-by-Nayland gave us this recipe for gooseberry pie. We’ve tested it and can confirm it’s delicious.

It’s also enormous – gives about 12 slices.

1. Cream your butter, sugar and eggs all together. Then add your flour to form a dough. Place your dough in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes (this is very important).
2. While the pastry is resting, make your gooseberry jam. Top and tail the gooseberries. Put the sugar and fruit together in a thick bottomed pan over a moderate heat; cook until the mixture turns a pinky colour. Set to one side to cool.
3. Preheat the oven to 185 degrees C / 365 degrees F.
4. Grease the pie mould so that it comes away from your delicious pie once it has cooked! (We use an 8-inch wide, 2-inch deep pie mould.)
5. When your pastry has finish resting in the fridge, divide and roll into two circles, one big enough for the base and one for the lid.
6. Line the pie mould with the bigger pastry circle. Bake the bottom case blind for 30 mins.
7. Add your cooked gooseberry filling to the cooked base, then egg wash the top pastry edge so that your pie lid sticks to it.
8. Place the pastry lid on top, pinch the edges to seal, and cook for a further 25 mins.
9. Once cooked, leave to cool a little before serving with a good quality vanilla ice-cream. 

Two of us baked the gooseberry pie and the results looked quite different (but tasted the same!).