Mhhh, apple pie!

Have you got a favourite kind of bakery? Is it something with chocolate? There are so many people who would die for a piece of chocolate (so do I) and love brownies or every other kind of chocolate cake and there's no question about that, I am the first one who can understand a passion for chocolate pie. But have you ever tried a delicious, still a bit warm piece of home-made apple pie? There's a cookbook in our kitchen shelf at home that contains the best recipe for apple pie I've ever found and I guess I may find other recipes but they will never ever reach this one.

Sarah Wiener. Her name is identical with the city this successful woman was born in - Vienna! I have to admit that the recipe for apple pie was the first and only one I tried from her book but it convinced me completely. Every time I look for something to bake and stumble over her cookbook there's no other way, I have to make an apple pie and all the other recipes again have to wait for some day in the future.

The wonderful thing about this recipe is that you don't need many different ingredients, just butter, flour, an egg, sugar, apples and so on - ingredients you either have at home or quickly buy at the supermarket round the corner.  I'm always amazed how these simple ingredients mixed in the right way can create such a delicious pie.

The preparation will need some time but mainly because the shortcrust pastry needs to refrigerate for about half an hour or a bit longer. The rest isn't complicated at all and at the moment you first smell the sweet taste of this apple pie you will know that it was absolutely worth waiting - I  promise you.

So you're getting excited and curious about the recipe? Here it is! :))

Ingredients: 

for the shortcrust pastry:

250 g flour (I always mix whole-wheat flour and plain flour)
125 g cold butter
100 g sugar
1 egg

for the filling: 

800-900 g apples (they can or should be a bit sour)
2 tsp lemon juice 

1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
optional: a handful of raisins

Preparation: 

Sieve the flour onto the worksurface, chop the butter and add them on top of the flour. Add the egg and the sugar and knead the dough until it's smooth. This can take a little time but be careful not to over-work the dough as it will make the pastry tough. When you're finished put the covered dough into the refrigerator. 

For the filling chop the peeled apples into small pieces and immediately sprinkle them with lemon juice and finally add the cinnamon and sugar. While chopping the apples you can already preheat the oven to 180°C because normally it takes some time until they reach the desired heat.

When the 30 minutes are over, take the dough out of the refrigerater and separate it into two parts (about one third and two thirds). Take the bigger part and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough so that it is big enough to cover a pie pan or a normal pan with a removable bottom (if you use such a removable-bottomed pan it will be useful to cover the bottom with parchment paper so that it doesn't stick to the pan later on). You can use a knife to trim the edges of the pastry so that it fits into the pan. 

Cover the pastry with the apples and in case you're a fan of raisins you can add a handful of them to the apples. Finally roll out the second part of the pastry and place it on top of the apples. Press down on the pastry edges and make sure they are properly sealed. If there is any excess pastry you can trim it off with a knife. 

Now it's your turn to realize your creativity. There's always some dough that remains at the end and with this dough you can show how creative you are. You can roll it out and cut out anything you want. As you can see on the photos I cut out some hearts but it's also possible to write something with the dough. There are thousands of possibilities :-) 

Finally prick the surface of the pastry lightly with a gable before placing the pie in the oven and then cook for about 40 minutes.

Well that's it! Before serving you can dust the pie with caster sugar or enjoy it with some vanilla ice cream - it will taste delicious either way!