Apple Pie

So, curiously and almost devilishly soon after starting our diet we sat down in front of the telly and channel-surfed to “Britain’s Best Dish”. That’s the thing with diets, the moment you make the pledge to eat less, somewhere someone seems to conspire to make you eat more. Anyway...

I have a terrible sweet tooth and a weakness for desserts and the way the judges raved about John Blenkinsop’s apple pie gave me a desperate compulsion to make it. I printed the recipe at work and stashed it away, ready for the point when we reached our goal weight.

Finally, the day had come, and I put together the pie to finish off our Asian-Spiced Pork Belly dinner. I was not disappointed, read on:

filling
900g of Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored, chopped into about 12ths, placed in pan of salted water to prevent from turning brown until ready to use. I say 12ths because I like it chunky and homespun, with still a little bite in the apples. Go smaller if you want it more stewed.)
3 tsp quince jelly
lemon juice
caster sugar
(Quantities of quince jelly, sugar and lemon juice will depend on the apples used so make sure you taste the filling before putting it in the pie.)

pastry
250g self raising flour
85g lard, cut into cubes
85g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
200mL sour milk (2-3 days in warm kitchen. Weird I know, hey I don’t make the rules...)

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Drain the water put apples in pan over medium heat and add quince jelly and part cook for about ten minutes. Add the lemon juice and sugar to taste. Drain and set aside to cool.

Put flour and fat into a food processor bowl and stick in the freezer for 20 minutes. This helps to stop the pastry overheating when you work with it and stops the fat melting into the flour. Blitz the mixture to rub the fat into the flour. Add the milk slowly, just enough so that the pastry comes together.

Dust the work surface and rolling pin with flour and put on 2/3 of dough. I rolled this pastry out once and then patched it together in a springform tin. The original recipe has you rolling it out, and folding it up a few times, which I think would actually be an ok idea as the pie crumbled when I served it (though it tasted magnificent!) I was just nervous about doing this because my kitchen was so warm from baking the meat and overworked pastry dough is tough and boring, but I think this dough would actually take a bit of abuse.

Put the apple onto base leaving clear edge around and brush with sour milk to ‘glue’ the lid on. For the lid, roll out the remaining pastry and lay on top, along with any other off-cuts of pastry (what else are you going to use it for? And the more pastry the better, I say!) Shave off some more butter with a potato peeler and dot this on top of the dough. Glaze top with sour milk and sprinkle with sugar and give a couple of jabs with a fork so steam can escape.

Place in oven for 35 - 45 minutes at 210 degrees Celsius until the pastry is a rich, golden brown. It is important not to under cook the pastry.

I served this with whipped cream which was wonderful (especially after having no cream for five weeks!) but next time I make it I want my hot piece of apple pie with freezing-cold-rock-solid-vanilla ice cream.