Pear apple pie

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450g wholemeal spelt flour
1 heaped tbsp honey
2 eggs
125g butter

1 kg ripe yellow pears
500g apples
1 tbsp water
150g almonds

50g icing sugar
pear schnapps

Do
Put flour in a large bowl.
Add honey in the middle and eggs.
Mix together with some flour into a paste.
Cut in butter. Mix.
Knead together into a pastry. Add more flour if sticky, more butter if not smooth. Cool.

Peel pears and apples and core them. Slice into a large pot. Slice the apples very thinly, pears more chunky.
Add water and cook at a medium temperature on the stove with the lid on until soft. Use apples which break down into a mash quickly. The pears should keep their shape. Turn of heat.
Finely grate 100g almonds with a hand grater.
Blanch 50g whole almonds.
Add to the apples. Mix carefully.

Butter a 28 cm round spring form.
Cut pastry into 3 pieces for the pie (2 equal, one smaller).
Roll out one piece for the bottom, make 3 cm sides with the small piece. Save the other piece for the top.
Cover the bottom of the pie shell with greaseproof paper and put a few weights on it (e.g. nuts or metal spoons).
Bake on second shelf for 10 minutes at 190°.
Remove from oven, remove paper and weights.
Fill the pie with the pear-apple mixture.
Roll out the remaining pastry and cover the pie with it.
Press down the edges using a patterned object (e.g. knife tip, lemon zester) to seal the pie.
Bake a further 20 minutes.
Loosen the pie from the bottom and sides of the form with a knife after 30 minutes and remove from form . Cool.
Sieve icing sugar. Mix in pear schnapps until a sticky mass forms. Paint this on the pie with a spoon and smooth over. Use lemon juice as an alternative to alcohol.

This is more a pear pie than an apple pie so it is important to use apples that break down into a mash quickly when cooking them, e.g. rubinola. Pears give off quite a lot of juice when cooking so the ground almonds are necessary to soak it up. The whole almonds give a pleasant surprise.
>> Apple pie

Apple Pie

This apple pie is different every time you make it. It depends on the type of apples and the quantity. If you take a lot of apples - about 2.5 kg - it becomes a very generous moist pie. If you take more almonds and fewer apples it becomes dryer. According to season, you can use red or green apples and each variety gives a different quality to your apple pie. I prefer red delicious, granny smiths, boskoop (from Holland) and cox orange.

GET

 450g wholemeal organic spelt flour 
1 heaped tbsp honey
2 eggs
125g butter
1.5 - 2 kg organic apples (green, red, large or small)
0.25 cup water
100g organic sultanas
1 lemon
75g ground organic almonds
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50g organic icing sugar
lemon juice

DO

Put flour in a large bowl. Add honey in the middle and eggs. Mix together with some flour into a paste. Cut in butter. Mix. Knead together into a pastry. Add more flour if sticky, more butter if not smooth. Cool.

Wash sultanas, soak in lemon juice and grated rind for 15 minutes. Peel apples and core them. Slice into a large pot. Add water and cook at a low temperature on the stove with the lid on until soft but not to mash. Turn off heat. Add sultanas, then almonds to the apples. Add cinnamon. Mix.

Butter a 28 cm round spring form. Cut pastry into 3 pieces for the pie (2 equal, one smaller). Roll out one piece for the bottom, make 3 cm sides with the small piece. Save the other piece for the top. Cover the bottom of the pie shell with greaseproof paper and put a few weights on it (e.g. nuts or metal spoons).

Bake on second shelf for 10 minutes at 190°. Remove from oven, remove paper and weights. Fill the pie with the apple mixture. Roll out the remaining pastry and cover the pie with it. Press down the edges using a patterned object (e.g. knife tip, lemon zester) to seal the pie. Bake a further 20 minutes.

Loosen the pie from the bottom and sides of the form with a knife after 10 minutes and remove from form . Cool on a grid.

Sieve icing sugar. Mix in lemon juice until a sticky mass forms. Paint this on the pie with a spoon and smooth over.

In Germany they would serve it with cream, in America and Australia with ice-cream, but this pie needs neither. >> Pear Apple Pie