A dear friend on My Fitness Pal once told me, “there’s no point working hard for a better lifestyle if you are too scared of eating to have any lifestyle at all”, and it really struck a chord with me. I love food, and while I’m happy to be strict with my diet and exercise 90% of the time, I really enjoy that 10%, when I can enjoy something decadent or wicked without a care in the world that it puts me past my daily calorie goal, because tomorrow is a new day, and one dessert isn’t going to undo any of my hard work. Even when that dessert is 500 calories and change. No apologies. Totally worth it.
Working with dough or pastry of any sort is always cathartic to me – making something so delightful out of the most basic ingredients is a simple joy that often makes me wish I had the courage and talent to cook for a living (and when I say that, I mean having a career where I’m paid to cook what I want, when I want, which I’m sure is not how any of this works).
There are a million pie recipes out there, and the basis of a lot of your fruit pie recipes are pretty similar. It’s a basic dessert, but really, who doesn’t love pie? It’s an essential recipe to have under your hat, and mine is an amalgamation of so many recipes I’ve come across. Even so, it’s probably exactly the same as somebody else’s, and eerily similar to many more. I can’t even begin to credit all my sources here – it’s a complete mongrel of a recipe. Especially when you start adding different fruits in here. Which work so well, especially if those fruits are apples, just to bulk it up. Actually, this makes for a sensational apple pie if you replace all the fruit with 7 Granny Smith Apples and do everything else exactly as written. In fact, I did exactly this tonight to take to my in-laws’. It’s a winner.
Word of warning – do not try to make this in an Australian Summer. It’s pretty much impossible to work with. This is a pastry that likes to be cold! If the pastry does get a bit warm and unworkable, just stick it back in the fridge for a few minutes, it’s pretty resilient, as long as the room temperature isn’t too high.
Serves 8. Or 4. Who am I to judge?
Ingredients
Pastry
1 1/3 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/4 cup custard powder
1/4 cup caster sugar
150g butter, chopped
1 egg, beaten
2-3tbs water
2tbs milk
2tbs raw sugar
Filling
50g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
400g can pitted cherries, drained
400g frozen berries, defrosted
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Method
- Process butter, custard powder, flours and sugar until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
- Add egg and 2tbs water. Process until mixture comes together into a ball. If it remains too dry, add extra water and process again.
- Turn dough onto a clean, dry surface and knead for 30 seconds until smooth. Flatten into a disc and wrap tightly in cling wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, melt butter and sugar for filling in a large saucepan over medium heat. Allow sugar to caramelise a little. Add fruit, lemon juice and spices, and mix well. Cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes, or until apples have softened but not collapsed. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- Roll out 2/3 of the pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper so that it is large enough to line base and side of prepared dish (test by ensuring that there is an inch or so around the circumference when you place the dish upside down over the pastry). Rewrap the reserved pastry in cling wrap.
- Remove one sheet of baking paper and carefully line the dish with pastry. When it is fitted in, remove the second sheet of paper. Smooth gently with clean hands. Using a sharp, small knife, trim the sides of the dish.Roll excess pastry with the reserved pastry. Allow some slight overhang – the pastry shrinks as it cooks. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 180C and grease a 20cm x 5cm deep pie dish.
- Meanwhile, roll out second ball of pastry so that it fits comfortably over the edges of the pie dish (you may have a little excess pastry left over). Cut into strips and press into the edges of the pie base to create a lattice pattern. Conversely, you could just roll the dough large enough to fit over the filling and press into the pastry bae, to make a full a full lid.
- Carefully brush pastry lid with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 45 minutes. Cool for at least 15 minutes before serving with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
