QUICK & EASY APPLE PIE

My friend Louise has a beautiful apple tree in her garden and brought a load of its apples into work for me to bake with.  These seasonal apples are perfect for pies and crumbles. I made a blackberry and apple crumble with them last week and this week I decided to make an apple pie. I didn’t have much time on my hands so I wanted to make this quick and simple.  At the end of the day, apple pie is simple…most of the best food is. To make it easier I bought the pastry pre-made. I know chefs bang on about pastry being so easy to make from scratch but its not easier than opening a packet, and every time I make pastry it goes wrong. There’s nothing wrong with making life easier for yourself.

I basically threw this together without measuring anything so I’m guessing with the quantities here. I used a 24cm rectangular tin.

5 medium size cooking apples or approx 700g, peeled and sliced
500g block of sweet shortcrust pastry
70g soft brown sugar
25g butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp caster sugar to sprinkle over the top

First, I preheated the oven to 200°C/180° fan then I started by preparing the apples and keeping them in water with a squeeze of lemon juice to stop them going brown while I carried on with the pastry.

I then rolled out about 350g of the pastry to line the bottom of my tin.

Use a small piece of the pastry to press the pastry into the tin to prevent any air bubbles. Then place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Next I melted the butter in a large pan and added the brown sugar. And then I added the apples.

I then added the ground cinnamon.

Keep on a low heat until the apples start to caramelise and go soft.

Next I rolled out the remaining pastry and took the tin out of the fridge.

Pour the apples into the pastry lined tin.

Then lay the pastry top over the apple mixture.

Brush egg wash around the edges to glue the two pieces of pastry together then crimp to stop any of the juices leaking. You can of course use a few scraps of the pastry to decorate. Then brush egg wash over the top and scatter with caster sugar.

Place in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes or until its golden brown on top.

Serve warm with some cold double cream.  Absolutely delicious and the most wonderful comfort food.

While I was eating this, I came to the realisation that as much as I like crumble, I definitely prefer apple pie much, much more.  This really was so delicious and so easy, please try it out for yourself.