Caramel Apple Pie

Serves 8

Ingredients:

For crust:

375g plain flour (I’ve used spelt flour here)

1 tsp. Salt

1 tbls. Sugar

250g frozen butter, grated on the large holes of a box grater

5 tbls. (100ml) Iced water

3 tbls (60ml) apple cider vinegar

For caramel:

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar or demerara

50g butter

3 Tbls. Cream

1 tsp. Vanilla essence or vanilla bean paste

Pinch salt

For apples:

7 pink lady or other good baking apple, peeled, cored and sliced thin

3 tbls. Plain flour

2 Tbls. Lemon juice

2 Tbls. Sugar

Pinch salt

1/2 tsp. Ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp. Ground nutmeg

To finish:

1 egg mixed with 1 tsp. Water for egg wash

1 tbls. Demerara sugar

Cream for pouring or vanilla ice cream

Method:

Mix your flour with salt and sugar and toss together with the butter. Pinch and crumble the butter in between your finger tips with the flour to form a meal. You want some small pieces of butter and some larger.  Add your cold water and vinegar and then tip onto bench and press together to bring together but don’t knead.  You may need to add a little more water.  Divide into two disks, wrap in baking paper and refrigerate for at least one hour. This can be done a day in advance.

On a well floured bench, roll both sheets out.  Fit one sheet into the base of your pie dish and cut the other into 2cm wide strips. Refrigerate until ready to assemble.

Preheat your oven to 200c conventional (185c fan forced).

To make the caramel, add the sugars to a heavy bottomed pot with 2 tbls water and place over medium high heat. Allow to start to melt and then once melted, stir so that it caramelised evenly. When smoking, turn the heat off and very carefully, as this with bubble up vigorously, add in the butter and cream and stir to combine.  Finish with pinch of salt and vanilla and then set aside to completely cool.

Toss your apples with the flour, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

Add your apples into your lined pie dish and then drizzle the cooled caramel on top of the apples.  Lay the pie strips in a lattice pattern on top of the apples.  You want an overhang of dough of about 1cm, trim any excess and then tuck the dough underneath itself to the edge of the dish.  Crimp the edges to form a nice crust.  Brush the top with egg wash and then sprinkle with more Demerara sugar.  Place into oven, on top of a tray, and immediately turn down to 180C conventional (165C fan forced). Bake for 60-70 minutes until the crust is deeply golden and bubbly.  Allow to cool completely for a few hours before cutting and serving with pouring cream or vanilla ice cream.