As the days of confinement go by, I find myself more and more returning to the food of my mother and grandmother; perhaps this is a kind of subliminal act of reassurance to my family. Or maybe it is because I have a newly-found sense of nostalgia. Either way, this one is a lot more elaborate than my mother's apple pie, mainly because she was a fifties housewife: only the staple ingredients and no embellishments. She would never have found things like cinnamon or dark brown sugar back then, due to rationing.
Although this ended by the sixties, the general trend remained firmly in the camp of vegetables and potatoes boiled to within an inch of their lives, and meat cooked in the oven with no decadent additions like herbs or garlic. So my mother's apple pie was generally a treat for us all. She peeled the apples and sometimes boiled them too, but I tend to err on the side of adventure when it comes to pie baking.
Ingredients:
For the pâte brisée (shortcrust) pastry:
300g flour
150g cold butter, diced into cubes
Half a teaspoon of salt
2 large dessertspoonfuls of sugar
A tiny drop of milk (or water, depending on taste)
1 egg
Some extra brown sugar for the topping
For the filling:
3 apples, cored and sliced into C-shaped pieces (leave on the peel for extra flavour)
A handful of sultanas
A good two dessertspoonfuls of dark brown sugar (otherwise just ordinary brown sugar)
A teaspoonful of cinnamon
Some five spice
Some lemon juice
Some white sugar if necessary
Clear honey (optional)
Instructions for the pastry:
Put the flour, salt, and sugar into a bowl. Add the butter and begin to massage it into the flour until it looks like rough breadcrumbs. Add a few drops of milk or water - you don't need much to get a good ball of dough. Put it in the fridge for a minimum of half an hour, then break it into two pieces (size ratio - 70% to 30%). Roll out the larger ball until it fits the entirety of your round baking tray.
Keep the last part for later.
Instructions for the filling:
Put the oven on to 180°C. While your pastry is in the fridge, put the apples into a bowl, squirt your lemon juice over them to keep their freshness. Throw in the cinnamon, brown sugar, five spice and sultanas. Give the whole thing a very good mixing-in so that it becomes consistent throughout.
Then put it into the baking tray and flatten it out. Put some honey on top if you want.
Take the smaller ball of pastry, roll it out, and cut into strips. Put them on top in a criss-cross pattern. It is not important if they are uneven or unequal in size or width, as after some time in the oven, they will find their own shape.
Glaze the top with egg, and put on a final dashing of sugar, then put it in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes, and serve immediately with cream, ice cream or custard.
