The pie maker behind Tebay Services’s iconic Beef Growler is set to be featured in Channel 4 documentary A Lake District Farmshop.
Amanda Wilson has worked with the Westmorland Family for more than 15 years.
Hairdresser turned baker Amanda founded The Pie Mill in 2005 with her late father, Jim Hodge, at her parents’ pub, the Mill Inn in Mungrisdale.
Supporting them from the beginning was Tebay Services’ buyer Alexander Evans, who asked chef Jim if he could make for Tebay’s Farmshop the same pies that sold so well in the pub.
In A Lake District Farmshop, Amanda pays tribute to her dad, who died last year after contracting COVID-19.
She describes his passion for piemaking and her determination to continue his legacy by making pies in the authentic way he taught her.
Together with a tight-knit team including her mum, Margaret, Amanda now makes more than 40 different types of savoury and fruit pie, plus quiches and pasties, in a production kitchen at the foot of Blencathra in Threlkeld.
Amanda is a champion of Cumbrian produce who embraces opportunities to support other local businesses.
She uses meat from Tebay Services’ butchers wherever she can and creates recipes exclusively for Tebay’s Farmshop: the Beef Growler, to name but one, is a cold picnic pie made with Tebay’s own beef topped with Hawkshead Relish beetroot and horseradish chutney.
A Lake District Farmshop shows Amanda and her team handmaking pies using pastry made to a secret shortcrust recipe that she and Jim spent years perfecting.
They can roll, fill and bake up to 4,000 pies a week in peak season – but they’ll never agree on who can crimp fastest.
Read more about how The Pie Mill is a tribute to Amanda’s dad here.
Lingholm Estate’s Wild & Fruitful appears in A Lake District Farmshop. Read more here.
Episode three of A Lake District Farmshop is on Channel 4 at 8pm.
