Death Star Pie, Death Star meat Pie, Death Star Beef and Guinness Pie, Star Wars food, Star Wars pie

How to make a fully operational Beef and Guinness Death Star Pie

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of a tasty meat pie” – Darth Vader

The Death Star has such a simple but effective design, I figured it would be straightforward to recreate in pie form (flat of course – I am not ambitious enough to attempt a spherical Star Wars pie!)

The Death Star was probably one of the first Star Wars doodles I learned, and the same was true for our daughter: It’s a circle, with a smaller circle for the dish, and a couple of lines across the middle for the equator. Done. This was our daughter’s first attempt, when she was 3-years-old.

(Well, she got better…)

Anyway, my point is that it should be pretty simple for me to make a Death Star pie. But first up came the filling – which is basically a thick beef stew. I went with Guinness as adding a dark side element seemed appropriate.

I used diced Beef steak, but any kind of casserole beef will do. All I had to do was brown it off in a pan and it was ready to use in my pie filling recipe.

A few tips

  • When browning the meat, pick out any big bits of gristle, and drain the fat
  • Preheat a baking tray in the oven, which will help you avoid your pie having the famed ‘soggy bottom’
  • Find a pan/bowl/whatever with a diameter that matches your pie dish, and then use it to draw a stencil of your intended design – this will help when it comes to the pastry work proper.

Anyway, here’s a fairly straightforward way to introduce a Star Wars pie into your family dinner time.

Star Wars pie
A rich and tasty beef and Guinness Star Wars pie

Beef and Guinness Death Star Pie recipe

Ingredients

  • 3 red onions (chopped)
  • 3 cloves of garlic (sliced)
  • 2 carrots (sliced)
  • 2 sticks of celery (chopped)
  • 4 mushrooms (sliced)
  • bunch of fresh rosemary (finely chopped)
  • olive oil
  • 900g Diced Beef Steak
  • Large can of Guinness
  • Beef stock cube
  • 2 large tablespoons plain flour
  • 75 g Cheddar cheese
  • Shortcrust pastry blocks or sheets
  • 1 large egg (lightly whisked)

Filling

  1. Preheat oven to 180ºC, with baking tray
  2. In a large frying pan, brown the beef. Once it has a nice colour, pour off fat, discard gristle, and set aside
  3. Heat a splash of oil in a large ovenproof pan over a low heat. Soften the onions for about 10 minutes
  4. Turn heat up and add the garlic, carrots, celery and mushrooms, then mix everything together before stirring in the beef, rosemary, and a pinch of salt and good grind of black pepper
  5. After 5 minutes, stir in the flour. When absorbed,  pour in the Guinness, crumble in the stock cube, and add just enough water to cover
  6. Bring to a simmer, cover the pan with a lid and place in the oven for up to 3½ hours, or until the meat is very tender and the stew is rich, dark and thick (stir halfway)
  7. Stir cheese through the pie filling, then leave to cool. Spoon into to a pastry lined round pie dish (see below)
The filling in the pastry lined pie dish. Yes, that is a Death Star cookie jar in the background.

Pastry

Roll one block of pastry out to the thickness of a pound coin, and then line your buttered circular pie dish.

Roll out other block of pastry, and then using your stencil cut out circle big enough to cover pie dish.

Referring to your stencil, decorate the pastry circle to resemble the Death Star with the two key iconic elements of the Concave Dish and the Equatorial Trench (and make holes in these to release steam while pie is baking).  Use scoring and more thin lines of pastry to give the impression it looks spherical. For a more detailed tutorial, check out this Valentine’s Day version of a Death Star pie.

Death Star pie stencil template and finished pastry top

Wet the edges of the pastry in the pie dish, then transfer your Death Star pastry topper to the pie and seal.

Brush with egg, and re-score any details that may have been filled in too much by the egg wash.

Bake at 180ºC for 45 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown.

And there you have it, a Death Star pie! – the perfect centrepiece for a Star Wars dinner party.

Death Star pie, Star Wars pie, Star Wars food, Star Wars party food
The Death Star pie – the perfect Star Wars dinner party food

6 thoughts on “How to make a fully operational Beef and Guinness Death Star Pie”

  1. Simon I am absolutely stunned at this. There is no way I could make a pie with such an elaborate casing. I am just amazed. Did you rely on the #poweroffrozen or #theforce to create this?

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