Apple Pie

Nothing is better than a piece of hot piping apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on rainy days! It's probably one of the easiest dessert to make. I got this awesome pie crust recipe from my mother in law which she got it from one of the Jamie Oliver's show. I love how flaky and buttery the crust is unlike some recipes which used shortening instead of butter, the crust turns out pretty plain. I've tried comparing both side by side. The smells of the buttery dough win hands down. Another reason why I love making apple pie is I don't have to wait for the butter to soften. Quick and comfort dessert ;)

Apple Pie Crust

400gm all purpose flour

225gm cold butter

2 tbsp icing sugar

A pinch of salt

1-2 eggs

 Cold water (optional which I've never used)

1. Cut cold butter into smaller cubes. 
2. Combine flour, sugar and salt together. Rub in butter into flour mixture until the mixture become coarse and crumbly. If you have the curvy cutter you can always use it. Otherwise, like what I always do just use fingers to rub in. I like to feel the butter and flour texture, so soft :) Do it quick though you don't want the butter to melt.
3. Add in beaten egg(s) slowly until dough forms a ball. If dough still crumbly, add a little bit more eggs. If you don't like eggs, can always substitute with cold water. 
4. Separate dough into two balls and wrap in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. 

Apple Pie Filling

6 cups Granny Smith apples (you can do less or more, depending on the pie size)

1 cup granulated sugar (reduce accordingly to amount of apples used)

1 cup brown sugar (reduce accordingly to amount of apples used)

1 tbsp lemon juice (fresh or bottled)

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 tbsp all purpose flour

1. Cut apples into thin slices. Add lemon juice and toss well.
2. Mix all other ingredients together.

Assemble

Additional butter

1 egg

1. Open cling wrap and put another piece of cling wrap on top of dough. Roll dough until desire thickness. The dough might be too soft to work with but as long as you use cling wrap, there shouldn't be any problem to roll it. I don't like to flour my working space and the dough so I use cling wrap. It's easier to move the dough to the pan as well.
2. Transfer dough to the pan and prick the bottom with fork. I use loose based pan so that it is easier to take out once it is baked. 
3. Mix apples with the spices ingredients. Toss well. Reason why I didn't mix the apples with the spices earlier is because the mixture will turn watery.
4. Cut some butter and put on top of the apple pie filling.
5. Roll the other dough and cover the pie. Cut a few slits on top to release the steam while it is baking.
6. Brush with beaten egg.
7. Temperate for baking varies. I bake it at 180C for about 30 minutes and reduce to 150C for another 30 minutes. Cover the top of the pie with aluminium foil when the top starts to brown. You want to bake it really well to have that melting filling.

Since I have some additional dough left, I turned it into Apple Pie Cookie (inspired by Annie's Eats). I forgot to put water on the dough as what the original recipe called for. The purpose is to stick the bottom and top piece together so that the filling will not leak while baking. Surprisingly, my crust recipe didn't leak at all! I just gently press the ends together and it turns out pretty good. Well, it doesn't taste like cookie of course since I use pie crust but it's still good.