Apple & Cranberry Pie

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23 June 2015 BY Julie Biuso
SERVES: 8

Whoa - this is a good one - apple & cranberry pie scented with a few grates of orange zest, topped with homemade pastry. Seconds guaranteed.

Ingredients

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Rich shortcrust pastry 220g (8 ounces) standard (US all-purpose) flour A pinch of salt 1 Tbsp caster (superfine granulated) sugar 170g (6 ounces) butter, firm but pliable, cubed 1 medium (size 6) free-range egg yolk 4-5 Tbsp chilled water A little milk and caster (superfine granulated) sugar, for glazing Filling 800g (about 1½ pounds) Granny Smith or tart cooking apples 1 Tbsp lemon juice 500g (about 1 pound) fresh or frozen cranberries Freshly grated rind 1 orange ½ cup caster (superfine granulated) sugar, plus extra for dredging 2 Tbsp cornflour (US corn starch) 2 Tbsp redcurrant jelly Cream or vanilla ice cream, for serving

Method

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Photography by Aaron McLean http://www.aaronmclean.com

1 Have ready a 20cm (8″) enamel pie plate, and centre a pie bird in the middle so steam can escape.

2 To make the pastry, put flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the chopping blade. Give a quick whiz, then add the butter. Process briefly until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Mix egg yolk and water together and pour into the processor through the feed tube. Pulse until mixture gathers in large clumps. Tip dough onto a dry lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3 Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface, then transfer to a baking tray (baking sheet) and refrigerate while preparing filling.

4 Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Peel apples, cut into quarters and remove cores. Slice thinly. Put apples in a bowl with lemon juice and toss gently until coated. Add cranberries, orange zest, then caster sugar, cornflour and redcurrant jelly (in small blobs) and toss gently.

5 Cut a long strip of pastry from rolled-out dough. Dampen rim of pie dish with water and press pastry strip onto it, then dampen the top of the pastry strip with water.

6 Pile fruit into pie plate – there is a lot of fruit, but it will collapse as it cooks, so pile it up around the pie bird and press gently to get rid of as much air as possible.

7 Cut a small cross in the centre of the remaining piece of pastry and drape it over the fruit, letting the pie bird pop through the cut in the centre. Seal pastry edges by pressing them together, trim, then crimp edges with the fingers.

8 Brush pastry top with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Put pie plate on a baking tray (baking sheet). Bake for 30 minutes until golden, then drape the pie with tin foil and continue cooking for a further 15 minutes. Serve hot with cream or ice cream.

Recipe notes

This may seem a mega-load of fruit for a 20cm pie plate, but mound it up, squash it down gently to get rid of air, drape with pastry and cook. You’ll see it is just perfect! There’s nothing worse than cutting into a fruit pie and finding the fruit shrunken and miserable and not sufficient in quantity to go with the pastry.

If you don’t have a food processor, make the pastry by hand. Put flour, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl and cut the butter through the flour using 2 metal knives or a pastry cutter, then rub it in with the finger tips until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the mixed egg yolk and water and mix to a dough.

Enamel pie plates are great for fruit pies because they heat quickly and cook the fruit by the time the pastry is ready. If you don’t have a pie bird, fashion a funnel out of tin foil.