This traditional dessert is an ideal winter warmer or a comforting bowl of goodness on a rainy summer's night. A cinnamon spiced apple and sultana centre is enveloped with a crisp, buttery pastry, perfect served with a dash of cream or a scoop of ice cream!
If the thought of making a pie daunts you, then we have plenty of tips below to help banish your worries.
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Yields:
8 serving(s)
Prep Time:
30 mins
Cook Time:
50 mins
Total Time:
1 hr 20 mins
Cal/Serv:
440
Ingredients
300g
plain flour, plus extra to dust
200g
unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1
.4kg Bramley apples, peeled, cored and cut into 2cm (¾in) pieces
100g
caster sugar, plus extra to sprinkle (optional)
1tsp.
ground cinnamon
75g
sultanas
1
medium egg, beaten
Double cream, to serve
Directions
Step 1
Put the flour, 175g of the butter and a pinch of salt into a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. If you don't have a food processor, rub the butter into the flour using your fingers. Add 3-4tbsp icy cold water and whiz again (or mix with a blunt-ended cutlery knife) until the pastry just comes together. Tip on to a work surface, bring together and wrap in clingfilm. Chill for 30min.
Step 2
Meanwhile, put the apple pieces into a large frying pan together with the remaining 25g butter, the sugar and the cinnamon. Cook gently for about 10min until the apples are just tender and there's barely any moisture in the pan. Add the sultanas and leave to cool completely.
Step 3
Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan) mark 6 and put a baking sheet on the middle shelf to heat up. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and roll out ⅔ of the pastry and use to line a 20.5cm round 7cm deep springform cake tin. Spoon the cooled apple mixture into the tin, level the surface, then fold excess pastry over the apples. Roll out remaining pastry as before, until it's larger than the base of the tin. Put the tin on the pastry and cut round the base. Lay the pastry circle on top of the apple mixture and press the edges down. If you like, cut apple and letter shapes from pastry trimmings and stick on to pie.
Step 4
Cut a small cross in the middle of the lid to allow steam to escape. Brush the top of the pie with beaten egg and sprinkle over some sugar, if using. Put tin into the oven on the heated baking sheet. Bake for 35-40min until golden.
Step 5
Leave pie to cool for 10min in the tin, then take it out of the tin and serve warm or at room temperature with lashings of cream, if you like.
If you prefer a lattice top, cut 2.5cm thick strips from the rolled-out lid pastry and weave a criss-cross pattern over the apple filling to create a basket effect.
Make sure that your butter is cold when it is added to your flour. If your butter is warm, it will begin to melt and the end result will be a heavy and greasy pastry.
Try and handle your pastry as little as possible. If your pastry is overworked, it will strengthen the gluten and your pie will become tough.
It's important to chill your pastry for the stated time in the recipe. This will firm up the butter once again, preventing a greasy finish. It also gives time for the gluten to relax.
If you preheat a baking sheet in the oven and then place the pie on the hot sheet in the oven to bake, it will help prevent the pastry from having a soggy bottom.
For a quicker, and no less delicious, apple recipe, we recommend our easy apple strudel (which uses ready made filo pastry) or our classic apple crumble recipe - which only takes 15 minutes to prepare.
An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).
