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