Scrumptious Apple Pie

Mmmm hot, melt in your mouth, scrumptious apple pie. It may have a lot of butter but it also has a lot of apple, which is a fruit, so technically if you eat this apple pie you have completed one of your five plus a day! That is success, if you ask me.

I hope you have all had a fantastic week and are ready for another recipe straight from the hot kitchens of AUT. It's been a hectic week full of chocolate chip cookies, rosettes, short bread, and yesterday we made one of our assessment items which was a fruit flan. It took 4 hours to complete and 2 seconds to demolish. That's what happens when your living with 45 other teenagers that act like they have never eaten pastry before.

We were also given our first assessment yesterday, so starting tomorrow I need to purchase and consume a traditional pastry item. Which won't be too hard, I then have to research the history of that item and boom, first assessment finished. So to help you satisfy your cravings here is the apple pie recipe from this weeks lessons:

Apple Pie Recipe:

Ingredients

Sweet Short Paste:

200g Soft Flour

100g Butter (cold)

55g Water (cold)

40g Sugar

½ tsp Salt

Apple Filling:

3-4 Apples (diced)

30g Butter

½ Lemon Zest

50g Sugar

Pinch Cinnamon

Pinch Nutmeg

30g Custard Powder

Handful of berries (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius

Sweet pastry:

1.     Make sure the butter is cold and cut into cubes before using the rub in method (exactly the same process when making the pastry for the quiche last week), to combine the butter and flour. If you don’t know what this method is: rub the butter into the flour with your hands until a sandy texture is reached.

2.     Dissolve the sugar and salt in the water and add half to the butter and flour.

3.     Mix well then add the other half of the liquid and mix until everything is only just combined.

4.     Tip the mixture onto the bench and gently knead until the pastry is one uniform colour.

5.     Roll into a ball, then flatten out with your hands, Split into 2 parts, one part being 3/4 of the mixture and one being 1/4 of the mixture.

6.     Wrap seperately with glad wrap and put in the fridge

Apple Filling:

1.     Place diced apple and butter into a saucepan, gently heat until the apples are heated through/cooked.

2.     Add the rest of the ingredients for the apple filling into the apple mixture, then stir until combined.

3.     Add a handful of berries (optional) to the mixture

4.     Put in the fridge to cool down

Assembly:

1.     Roll out ¾ of the pastry until it is approx. 3mm and line base and side of a 20cm pie dish

2.     Spoon cold apple filling into pastry case; brush the edge with lightly beaten egg wash or water.

3.     Roll remaining pastry large enough to cover top of the pie and place over filling

4.     Trim the edge of the pie, brush with egg wash and decorate how you please. (I used a fork and gently pressed around the edge, I then lightly ran the back of a knife to make a criss cross pattern)

5.     Rest in the fridge for 10 minutes  

6.     Bake in the oven at 200 degrees for 30-40 minutes (approx.)

 Let me know how it turns out if you do decide to create this marvellous piece of mouth watering deliciousness. 

Have a fabulous week!

B.