A Piece Of Pie

Of course I didn’t just make savoury for the barbecue – helping make pasta and paneer and creating a dip is fun and all but seriously, so not brainwashed!

I decided a rustic style of dessert would be appropriate for this so I went with an apple pie. Simple, gorgeous and an unfailingly popular dessert for sure! This was actually my first time making a real pie and I realised this only yesterday – tarts I am all over but pies, oh my! And the humid weather really helped out (major sarcasm dripping in voice!)

Once more, I turned to Exclusively Food and have my to-go pie crust recipe 🙂
Their apple pie recipe in itself was good but I have to admit, I was not happy with the lack of cinnamon and vanilla essence. So I jazzed it up – a lot!

It turned out to be a spicy, warm and delicious deal which, I am very proud to say, actually had people coming back to seconds! My brother, such a sweetie-pie, actually said it tasted like Sara Lee’s or Nanna’s apple pies we used to bring home before I got into baking!!!

Before I give you my adapted recipe, let me give you a couple of tips when handling this pie:

• I made 1 1/2 of the pastry for my pie tin which was 5-6cm deep and 25cm length and I actually needed double the recipe
• I learnt that humid weather will kill your pastry. Make sure your conditions are cool (I placed a fan directly in front of me)
• Do not freeze the pastry – as it was directed in the recipe. The pastry came out brittle and hard to roll – I think it would be best to refrigerate for a longer period and end up with a pliable pastry
• The more pliable the pastry, the more you can roll out and cut into strips to make the really cool weaving pattern on pies
• Due to the above factors I ended up actually pushing and spreading the dough at the bottom using my hands, filling it, and then slightly rolling and pushing the dough to cover and make the crust (quite hard!) – make sure to cover your rolling pin in flour and your hands as well

• The bottom did not come off quite so nicely when serving with some part being in the humidity but I think flouring just the bottom after greasing will help that as well as baking it for approximately 22-25 minutes after turning the temperature down instead of 18-22 minutes
• You can cover your pie with aluminium foil if it is overbrowning of if you are reheating
• Before reheating, or 4-5 minutes before it has finished baking, glaze pie with apricot jam or apple sauce for a really shiny and glossy finish

So enjoy this rustic and delicious yet totally simple apple pie!!! I swear you won’t regret it!

Apple Pie
Source: Adapted from Exclusively Food

Serves: 8-10

Ingredients

Pastry (double original recipe)

• 300g cold butte, cubed
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 cup SRF
• 2 eggs
• 1-2 tsp vanilla essence
• Extra couple of tsp of brown and caster sugar
• Apricot jam/apple sauce to glaze (optional)

Filling

• Approximately 800g readymade apple pie filling (should be already sweetened but if not, add in 4 tsp caster sugar and 4 tsp brown sugar and mix through) – See exclusively food for homemade apple pie filling
• 1-2 tsp allspice
• 1-2 tsp cinnamon
• Generous 1/2 cup golden raisins (can be omitted)

Method

1. Place butter, sugar, flours  and spice into a food processor and process until mixture is pebble sized and close to fully ground (25-30 seconds)
2. Add in eggs and essence and process until mixture comes together as a dough
3. Remove pastry from processor and separate into 2 pieces, one slightly bigger than the other
4. Shape each piece into a disc and wrap in gladwrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight
5. Preheat oven to 200 degrees (180 degrees fan-forced) and position shelf in the middle of the oven
6. Grease a 25cm (length) and 5-6cm (depth) pie tin with butter generously and put a dusting of flour on bottom
7. Place the larger of the pastry between two pieces of baking paper and roll pastry out to form a 28cm diameter circle. Invert the pastry from the paper onto the baking tin, peel away paper and gently press pastry into the tin shape
8. Roll out remaining pastry to form a 26cm diameter circle
9. Place apple pie mixture into a large bowl and mix through sugars if necessary + spices until well combined – at this point, you can also mix in some orange or lemon zest to give it a little zing as well
10. 10. Spoon filling into pastry case and smooth top with a spoon – scatter with raisins on top if using
11. 11. Cover filling with remaining pastry using same method as before. Seal together base and lid
12. 12. Cut a slit in the middle of the pie to allow steam to escape while cooking
13. 13. Sprinkle 1-2 tsp of brown and caster sugar mixed together on top of pie.
14. 14. Bake pie for 20 minutes before turning heat down to 180 degrees C (160 degrees fan forced). Bake for another 15 minutes, glaze with apple sauce or apricot jam, and then bake for another 5-10 minutes
15. 15. Remove pie and let cool for 10 minutes

Slice and serve (we had it with Sara Lee’s delicious Honeycomb & Butterscotch ice cream but I think I am going to make homemade ice cream next time :D)

P.S Please forgive the quality of my finished product photos – I took them in a desperate attempt after everyone had left at 1am in the morning – yea…