Apple pie

Apple pie ( to make a small pie)

Ingredients

Short crust pastry

200 gms of flour

100 gms of butter

1 egg

2 tablespoons of cold water

Apple mix

5 granny smith or any other tart apple

1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder

4 heaped tablespoons of brown sugar

1 table spoon of molasses

1 tablespoon of butter

Roughly chop the old butter and mix it with the flour to form course crumbs. Add half the beaten egg and table spoon of cold water and mix lightly. Add the other half of egg and water only if you think the mix needs it.  Line a flat cold surface with cling wrap and bring the mixture together using the cling wrap. Do not overwork the dough or the pastry will be tough. Pat into a flat disc shape and refrigerate wrapped in cling wrap for 30 minutes.

Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and keep a small portion aside for the pie top. roll the remaining dough between two sheets of cling wrap. Use the pie tin to ensure the pastry is rolled out enough to cover the base and sides. Using the cling wrap place the rolled pastry into the tin, gently pressing in to ensure it covers all the sides and base well, without stretching the pastry. Use the rolling pin to cut off the extra pastry by rolling it over the sides. The extra dough can also be reserved for the pie top. Dot the pastry base with. Fork, this prevents the pastry from rising up when being cooked in the oven. Chill the pastry in the pie tin for 15 minutes to allow the butter to set, and then blind bake for 15 minutes in a 180c pre  heated fan forced oven. Blind baking entails placing a piece of baking paper on the pastry and filling it with beans/ legumes or rice. You can also purchase ceramic beans made specially for blind baking. The beans, both ceramic or rice etc can be reused. Blind baking ensures, the pastry is both cooked and retains its shape before the filling goes in. If this step is missed, you will end up with a soggy pie base. After 15 minutes take the pastry out of the oven, remove the beans and baking paper, seal the bottom with beaten egg and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven, add the cooled apple mix and cover with the remaining pastry arranged in a lattice pattern.  Brush with beaten egg and cook for 20 minutes.

Cool, remove from pie tin, dust with icing sugar and serve either warm or cold either on it's own or with custard or vanilla ice cream.

Apple pie mix

Peel, core and cut the apples and squeeze the juice of half a lemon to ensure the apples do not oxidize.

In a pan, place a tablespoon of butter and add the apples. Cook for five minutes to get rid of some of the moisture from the apples. Add half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon and four tablespoons of brown sugar and one heaped tablespoon of molasses. I add this for the caramelized flavor it adds, but you can easily substitute the molasses with brown sugar or just use white sugar instead equating to 1 tablespoon per apple or as per your taste ( keep in mind, the colour of the filling will be much lighter). You can also use a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead of the cinnamon powder. 

Cook for a further five minutes until a sticky jammy consistency is achieved. leave to cool until you are ready to use the mixture to fill the pie.