Apple Pie

As I said in my last (very brief) post, I recently went to Switzerland for a couple of weeks. Before we went away, we had a glut of apples (we don’t have a tree, just a tendency to over-buy on fruit and veg!) that I decided needed turning into a pie. I love baking pies, it’s such a 50s housewife/Snow White thing to do and so so yummy! I made a basic (all butter- I swear that the apples even out the unhealthiness of the butter :-S) shortcrust pastry, then made the filling by slicing the apples and coating them with: caster sugar, muscovado sugar, orange juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, a little salt and a couple of tbsp of cornflour to thicken up the juice released by the apples. I filled the pie (very very generously- those apples needed using up!) with the apple slices and the sugar and spice coating.  

After putting the lid on the pie (the most Snow White-esque part of the process for me) I decided it needed some sprucing up, so it was time to whack out the blossom plunger cutters and make it a more fairytale-pie, I covered the top with pastry flowers before glazing with milk and baking.

I probably should have cooked the apples down before baking to get some of the juices out, but I went for the quick option and filled the pie with the raw apple filling, the pastry was still baked through properly and had a crisp base, but as soon as I cut out a slice the tin was flooded with appley sauce! It was yummy and syrupy but there sure was a lot of juice! We weren’t complaining though, especially when it mixed in with a little of the double cream we ate it with ;-)

The pie also made for a pretty good rushed breakfast the next morning, you’ll get to find out what the rush was all about in the next post!  

Hayley x