Family Baking Rocks!!

Today was baking day...

My two-year-old daughter, Lilly-Ann and Chantal, my beautiful wife, baked some amazingly yum cookies, with a recipe we pilfered off Joy the Baker's blog. They are called Flourless Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies, and are so easy to make with your kids, Lilly spooned on all the jam/jelly and loved licking the spoon after every cookie (oh well, at least I know I won't pick up any deadly virus!).

I, on the other hand, baked a classic. An Old Fashioned Apple Pie. I used sweet French pastry for the crust and made my filling with tart New Zealand backyard apples, which Chantal's mum and dad had bought off a street vendor. I like using brown sugar when baking with apples. In my humble opinion, brown sugar
enhances the character of  the fruit. This is my own delicious apple pie recipe and is best served warm with Vanilla Ice-Cream or a dollop of Double Thick Cream.

Pastry

280g Flour
160g Butter
110g Castor Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 Tsp. Vanilla Essence
Pinch of Salt

Cube the butter when cold and cream it with the sugar when the butter is at room temp (you might need to soften it slightly in the microwave if you live in a cold place like New Zealand). Sift in the flour and the salt and mix well while rubbing the mixture through your fingers. You'll notice the mixture starts to look and feel like very light crumbs, then add the two eggs and vanilla essence, mix together well and knead slightly. Roll your Pastry into a ball and cover with clingfilm. Rest in the fridge for 30min. to an hour.

Filling

700g Peeled and Cored Apple Chunks
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Water
1 1/2 Tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1 Tbsp.Lemon Juice
1 Tsp.Vanilla Essence(or seeds from 1 Vanilla Pod)
3 Tbsp Cornflour

Place all the ingredients excepting  the cornflour into a large saucepan with a lid, and bring to a slow simmer, stirring to ensure the sugar gets dissolved, cook for 3-4min. till apples start becoming tender. Mix the cornflour with a little water and stir through the apple mix and cook this further for 1min. Let the mix cool.

Assembly

Preheat your oven to 150 deg. Celsius. Grease and flour a 24cm pie dish/tin. On a floured surface roll out 3/4 of the pastry. Reserve the remaining 1/4 to roll out and cut into strips for the lattice to go on top of your pie.

I use a large piece of baking paper that I place over the pastry while using a rolling pin, this somehow keeps the pastry together without it cracking too much.

Line the dish with the rolled out pastry and blind bake for 15-20 min. Remove from oven and let the shell cool.

Fill the shell with the apple mix and assemble the lattice straight onto the pie, neatly trim the edges and brush with milk. Bake @ 170 deg. for another 20-25min.

Now you should have a mighty fine apple pie to enjoy with some friends.

Happy Cooking