Have you ever had a real baking disaster? I honestly thought I was pretty good at baking until I was placed under a bit of time pressure and was trying anything possible to speed up the whole process and as a result used the wrong kind of flour and added eggs where they shouldn’t be. I have made many apple pies in the past but this particular baking session was awful. Imagine flour all over your kitchen, in your hair, in your eyelashes, crumbly pastry on the floor and in the keyboard of your laptop…oh and your teeny chihuahua trying to lick up the flour from the floor and subsequently sneezing it everywhere. The drama was unreal and I obviously took it out on Liam as he was the only person I could vent on. After throwing said crap pastry across the kitchen and screaming at Liam for a little while and trying to blame it on him even though he was in the other room building a shelf from scratch, he then helped make me some fresh pastry which of course was perfect! Four hours later I had eventually made the perfect autumn apple pie and with a well tried and tested recipe I would love to share it with you as it turned out to be delicious.
{Uncooked and ready to pop in the oven…I am in love with this pastry but what a drama to get there!}
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INGREDIENTS
Pastry:
225gr Plain flour
100gr chilled butter
Casting sugar
Pinch of salt
3tbsp of water
(This made enough for my base. I would recommend making this twice if you want to make a lattice and the stars.)
Filling:
x4 Cooking apples (peeled)
x2 Braeburn apples (peeled) for added sweetness
Caster Sugar
Zest of one lemon
Zest of one orange
2tsp of ground cinnamon
Extra sugar, cinnamon and milk for brushing and dusting on the top
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METHOD
•Preheat the oven to 180ºC (fan oven).
•Unconventionally I used a loose bottomed cake tin which made the pie very easy to remove and made it look like a giant pork pie.
Pastry
•Place the pinch of salt, caster sugar and flour in a bowl and mix together until it resembles bread crumbs.
•Add water until it all binds together. Be careful not to overwork your pastry.
•Wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Filling
•Peel and chop up your apples into smallish chunks (it is your choice how you chop them depending on how chunky you want your apple to be in your pie.)
•Over a low heat pour your apples, cinnamon, sugar and lemon and orange zest into a big pan. Leave these to simmer for about 5-10 minutes, stirring regularly.
•Butter your tin thoroughly to allow for easy removal once your pie is cooked.
•Roll out your pastry to the thickness of a pound coin and line your tin with this pastry.
•You need to blind bake this base of pastry by cooking it at this stage for about 5 minutes. If you have the posh baking beads then use these to weigh down the pastry or you can use rice. I am a bit lazy and don’t use anything and just pray for the best.
•Once you have blind baked the base pour in your apples and the sauce it has created. Be careful not to add too much of the liquid the apples have produced as you don’t want a “soggy bottomed” pie.
•Make your lattice lid by rolling out your pastry as wide as possible and slicing centimetre wide strips. Then weave them over and under each other.
Top Tip: Make your lattice on a chopping board so you can slide it straight off and on to your pie.
•Once you have placed your lattice onto the apples, pinch it together with the base. Don’t worry if this is messy because you can use the stars to cover it.
•Use a small star cookie cutter to make teeny stars out of your left over pastry and decorate.
•Brush milk all over your pie.
•Mix your extra ground cinnamon and caster sugar in a bowl and sprinkle generously over your pie.
•Cook for 45 minutes or until golden and the pastry looks cooked.
…and enjoy…
•Don’t forget to tag me on Instagram if you make it•
