The Lochinver Larder Filling Factor

A Lochinver Larder pie is a special kind of pie.

Each one is painstakingly handmade on-site, ready for eager, hungry punters to carefully select a pie (or three) of their fancy to take with them on their adventure. Or, stay and eat in, enjoying the peace and tranquillity that Lochinver has to offer.

A Lochinver pie isn’t just any pie: it’s a recipe that has been perfected over thirty years. The savoury pastry is floured and rolled; perfecting the roll to get it an exact thickness. The ingredients are locally sourced, using the very finest foods available.

When the filling meets the pastry, a little bit of magic happens.

The pie is forming; now we need to crimp to get the perfect edges to our pies. Crimping happens by hand, so does the egg wash, before it goes into the oven for the exact amount of time required. And then the testing: is the pastry crispy yet soft? Can you smell and taste every part? Is there enough filling? Is it sizzling? Only when we’ve checked these elements can we sell them to our customers.

These aren’t mass produced, they’re not machine made. These are our precious pies.

Recently, we undertook an experiment: we called it the Filling Factor.

We weighed the pastry and filling of the pie post-bake to assess what had the biggest weight.

Now, we don’t want to get preachy, but did you know that most mass-produced pies have a higher pastry weighting than filling? That sounds a bit flaky to us.

All of our pies have a higher ratio of filling than pastry – in fact our Pork and Apple pie has 63% filling and just 37% pastry. That’s 225g of filling to 130g of pastry. Yum! The pie toppings are even domed to accommodate this extra filling. We don’t do anything by halves here. 

You’re spoiled for choice, really.

And the proof is in the pudding.

In March 2022, Lochinver Larder won the Best Scottish Meat Pie Award at the British Pie Awards! Not only that, of 16 pies entered, seven Lochinver Pies were awarded Gold in their pie category, including our Highland Venison and Cranberry (57% filling), five Lochinver Pies received Silver awards, and our Chicken, Leek and Mushroom (55% filling) pie was Highly Commended.
Lochinver Larder’s Venison and Cranberry pie won “Best Scottish Meat Pie” Champions Cup.

Lochinver Pie-maker team winning ‘Best Scottish Meat Pie’

Our customers are just as pleased, with some of our favourite reviews below:

“Massive pies, well-filled, easily a meal”

“Full of flavour and filling and great pastry.”

“Pastry was better than my nan’s on both the savoury and sweet. Gravy to die for. Proper substantial, no air gap in any pie.”

“I'd be surprised if anyone has ever eaten a nicer pie.”

Our talented Pie Makers really are the passion and power behind our pies. Without them, there would be no pie awards and no pie-lands in the Highlands.

We deliver our pies across the UK, from our Larder straight to yours. Be sure to order your favourites today to see what all the fuss is about via our Pies by Post service.