Yes, I love Spring, when the air is damp with newness, the countryside turns a delicious deep shade of emerald and baby animals populate the fields. And of course, Summer, with the heady smell of perfumed flowers, a hustle and bustle of busy farmers drawing hay, trips to the bog to turn, foot and bring home the turf, random trips to the slightly decrepit and fading seaside towns of Ireland, cider in a beer garden come smoking area and the anticipation of summer memories. But Autumn (and Winter) will always be my favourite, as August rolls slowly into September, there is a feeling of renewal, of anticipation. perhaps this is drawn from years of returning to a new school year, or is drawn from something deeper, more innate, the Celt in me preparing to harvest the goods of the year and celebrate the new one about to begin. For Autumn is (in my opinion) a food lovers paradise. It offers those of us who grow our own food a sense of achievement, as the bountiful (hopefully) harvest requires collecting. Apples, potatoes, blackberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, pears, blackcurrants, onions, garlic..the list is endless. And with the ingredients ready, what more is there to do but start cooking??
The colours of autumn, reds, greens, golden burnt yellow and browns take their food representation in the quintessential autumn dish, the Apple Pie.
Now, I actually have a phobia of apples in their natural form. They were involved in a traumatic childhood experience which resulted in the loss of my first tooth. (Ok, so it wasn't that traumatic, I took a bite of an apple only to look at it and see my tooth stuck into it, a little blood seeping into the pale green flesh of the apple). However I do love baking with them. Pie, tart, crumble or cake - apple and sugar is a match made in heaven.
So as I went to gather the first of the bounty from the orchard my mind went into overdrive with recipe ideas. Crumbles I figured, while lovely and stodgy were a bit simple for these first knights of the autumn, cake? hmm..maybe, as it turns out I had no cream for the recipe for that..tart? perhaps..but what I hadn't made or eaten in years was an apple pie.
When I was younger I distinctly remember being unimpressed with the slimy, sticky fillings covered with pale under/over cooked pastry that were passed off as pies in restaurants, cafes or shops all over Ireland. Then one day, my cousins mother presented me with a slice of pie that was so glorious, it defies description. The apples had kept their shape, the ratio of sweet to tart was bang on with just a hint of cinnamon. And the pastry. Just wow. And the thing is..apple pie should be simple. its fruit in pastry. Simples. So, for the first of my autumn harvest a pie it would be.
I'm going to give the recipe for the pastry here first as I find that you really do need to make it at least an hour before required or it sticks to everything and makes life a misery when rolling out. The recipe is one I use for all my sweet pastry needs and I have never had a complaint, in fact, it's one of the things people ask me the recipe for. It comes from the acclaimed and renowned French chef Stéphane Reyaud's book ''Ripailles''. I'll give it exactly as it come from the book:
Pate Sablée/Rich sweet shortcrust pastry (for one tart)
Flour - 250g
Ground almonds - 50g
Butter - 125g
Caster sugar - 70g
Egg - 1 medium egg
1. mix the softened butter with the sugar and ground almonds, then add the sifted flour little by little.
2, next add the egg to obtain a very smooth dough. chill before using.
NOTE: in the making of this apple pie, I had to replace the ground almonds with semolina because I had run out of the almonds. I also used homemade vanilla sugar. As stated, the above recipe is for one tart..as this was going to be a pie, I double it. It did make ALOT of pastry, however you could easily freeze it and use it for making mini pies in future.
Once the pastry had been made, I started on preparing the apples..peeled and chopped in the medium chunks the apples were kept in some lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown. I used approximating 8-10 small apples.
Then I rolled out the pastry to about 30 cms to fit into a 23cm pie tin . Once the pastry base was in the tin, I lined it with grease proof paper, filled it with baking beans and blind baked it for 10 mins at Gas Mark 4 after the ten minutes, I removed it from the over, took out the beans and paper, pricked the base with a fork and returned it to the over for another 5 minutes.
Now, to the filling. Let the base cool before you put the apples in or you'll end up with a soggy bottom and you don't want Mary Berry chasing you through your nightmares admonishing you with a wooden spoon. When cooled, place the chopped up apple into the base, packing it quite tightly. Then sprinkle with 2 tsp of cinnamon, 2/3 tbsp of light brown sugar (depending on how tart your apples are), a squeeze of vanilla bean paste and 5 to 6 soft toffees. Roll out the left over pastry to make a lid and secure over your pie with some beaten egg. If like me, you want to be a bit adventurous you can t making decorations out of the left over pasty. If not, prick the top of the pie to let the steam out, brush over the remaining egg and sprinkle more of the light brown sugar on top. Put into the over, at gas mark 4 for 45-60 minutes, until golden brown. I found that around 50 minutes did the trick.
Remove from the oven and let cool IN the tin, don't event think about removing it until it's cold or you'll have an apple-y disaster! Serve with vanilla cream (vanilla sugar whipped into cream) or ice cream (I had some caramel honeycomb chocolate ice cream I made during the summer and it went sooo well with it).
soooo..heres the ingredients for the filling:
8-10 small apples (if using store bought normal sized apples I'd go for 4 )
2tsp cinnamon
2/3 tbsp light brown sugar
2tsp vanilla bean paste
5-6 soft toffees (I used some Butlers toffees I had lying around since last Christmas but any brand will work just fine)
1 egg (beaten) for attaching the lid on the pie and the wash on the top of the pie.
Following a long week of job applications and money stress, there is nothing better than a nice slice of apple pie (I won't enter the warm -v- cold debate on my first post). It is the epitome of Autumnal cooking and is comfort food at its finest, highlighting the versatility of the teeth stealing apple.
