My apple pie evolved after years of baking 'not quite good enough' apple pies. I had tried all combinations, cooking apples, eating apples, half and half of each, shortcrust pastry, sweet shortcrust pastry, crumble topping on a pie base, although all the pies were edible they weren't delicious. Eventually I stumbled across a Jamie Oliver recipe which gave me hope, after a bit of tinkering I made a so-called 'perfect apple pie'.... (clap, clap, clap..)
This pie is, for me, the perfect combination, not too tart, not too sweet due to a mixture of half cooking and half eating apples cooked till just soft in a little bit of water with cinnamon and brown sugar added, once cooked set aside to cool completely.The pastry, a rich, crumbly, sweet shortcrust bound with egg yolks rather than water and sweetened with icing sugar, although a pain to roll out, wonderful against the natural tartness of the apples. The egg yolks add a richness to the pastry which is short but a little cakey too.
A bit of egg-wash on top and dusted with cinnamon before a slow bake in the oven...perfection...!
Forget about that nice ribboney-lattice-top, am to lazy to take out my ribbon cutting tools, so I just use the ordinary knife and cut the pastry dough into long strips, then weave them together in a criss-cross pattern to creaty that lattice effect. Hmmm..., that will do..
Warning: Your house is fixing to smell pretty good! Forget about those scented candles, you've got the real thing!
I find that there are two things that make apple pie the best....
First, it has a delicious, homemade crust. Next is its delicious filling.
For me apple pie must be eaten with very good quality vanilla ice cream although in desperate times double cream or custard will suffice. Unfortunately, neither one of those were in the fridge...! (sigh...)
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