Autumn 2022Lattice apple pie

by Natasha Brown - owner of Brown’s Cakes

Ingredients

For the pastry:

• 350g plain flour
• 200g cold butter cut into small cubes
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons cold milk

For the filling:

• 900g cooking apples (about 5 large apples)
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 75g dark brown sugar
• 75g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon mixed spice
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice from 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons cornflour
• Egg wash and sugar to sprinkle over pie

The pastry:

The easiest way to make the pastry is to put all the pastry ingredients into a food processor and pulse them until they start to come together. Tip the ingredients onto your worktop and gently squeeze the pastry together into a ball. Don’t overwork it, just squeeze it together.

If you don’t have a food processor, you will need to rub the butter into the flour and icing sugar with your finger tips. When the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, stir in the cold milk and bring it all together to form a pastry. Alternatively, you can buy ready made pastry in a supermarket but it’s definitely worth having a go at doing your own if you have the time and the inclination.

Once the pastry is made, cut it into two pieces (one a little bigger than the other) and form two balls. Roll the larger ball on a floured surface until it is large enough to line a 9” flan dish. Line the flan dish with the pastry and trim around the edges. Put the flan dish in the fridge to chill for at least an hour and squeeze any off cuts in to the other ball of pastry, cover it in cling film and leave to one side.

The filling:

Peel and core the apples and cut them into equal sized slices.

Melt the butter in a large pan and gently cook the apple slices with the sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and spices for about 15 minutes (until the apples are soft but still hold their shape).

Add the cornflour: you may not need it all as it depends how much juice was in the lemon so add it half a tablespoon at a time.

To assemble the pie: 

Tip the apple mixture into the flan dish. Roll the second ball of pastry into a circle the size of the flan then cut it into 10 – 12 strips.

Wet the edge of the flan with a little milk and lay 5 – 6 strips of pastry vertically across the flan. Peel back alternate strips then place a fresh strip of pastry horizontally across the flan. Bring the peeled back pastry back in to place and fold back the other alternate strips. Lay another fresh strip of pastry over the flan and keep repeating this process until the whole flan is covered with the criss-crossed pastry.

Use a fork to squash the edges of the pie together then trim around the edges. Pop the pie back in the fridge to chill for about 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/180ºC(fan)/Gas 6.

Beat together an egg and a splash of milk to make an egg wash and apply it over the pastry. Sprinkle the pie with some sugar and bake for approx. 40 – 50 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

The pie can be served hot with custard or can be chilled and served with cream and ice cream. If you’d like to jazz it up you can add blackberries, raspberries or wimberries. These can be stirred into the cooled apple mixture once that has been cooked. However you serve it, whatever fruit you put in... enjoy!