Apple Pie

I recently watched and loved the TV show Pushing Daisies starring Lee Pace, who plays a sweet, socially awkward pie-maker.  Naturally, there were many pies featured on the show and I have never baked a pie other than lemon meringue.

My family is decidedly not a pie family; I haven't had a wide range of pie experiences, so I decided to tackle apple pie first.  It seemed like a good place to start.

The first time I tried this, I went straight from the recipe and it was a pretty big disappointment.  Putting uncooked apples in the pie resulted in, basically, a pie shell with slightly softened apple slices inside.  I wanted something with more of a soft, squishy apple filling, so I played it by ear and did my own thing.

I'm pleased to say that my round of pie-baking was a success!  The crust has a great texture with a hint of lemon that's not overpowering; and the innards of the pie are sweet, soft and lightly spiced.

Recipe heavily adapted from: Jamie Oliver
Ingredients - crust (20 cm (8 inch) pie)
250g flour
50g icing sugar
Pinch of salt
Zest of 1/2 lemon (use the zest from the other half in your filling)
125g cold butter
1 egg
1 tsp milk

Ingredients - filling
4 cooking apples (I used Granny Smiths)
1 eating apple (I used a Pink Lady)
5 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
Zest of 1/2 lemon
Squeeze of lemon juice

Ingredients - egg wash
1 egg
Splash of milk

Method - crust
1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).

2. Mix the flour, sugar, salt and lemon zest in the bowl of a food processor.

3. Add the lemon zest and cold butter and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

4. Add the egg and pulse until the dough starts to come together.  Add the milk and pulse until the dough is smooth.

5. Form the dough into a flat rectangle and wrap it in cling wrap.  Leave it in the fridge and get on with making your filling!

Method - filling
1. Peel your apples and cut them up into eighths.

2. Place the apples into a saucepan along with the brown sugar, ginger, lemon zest and lemon juice.

3. Mix the ingredients together and cook over medium heat until the apples are softened.  Cook longer if you want a softer filling, or cook for a shorter time if you prefer more texture.

4. Take the filling off the heat and let it cool.

Method - baking/assembly
1. Take the crust dough out of the fridge.  Flour your clean work surface and split the dough into two portions, about 2/3 and 1/3 each.  The bigger portion will be for your base and the smaller for the top of the pie.

2. Roll the larger portion out into a circle about 1/2 cm thick (make sure to flour your rolling pin and the top of the pastry so nothing gets sticky).  You want it to be big enough to drape over the sides of your pie dish.

3. Carefully roll the pastry over your rolling pin then unroll it over the pie dish.  Gently manipulate the pastry so there are no air bubbles and the pastry is flush with the entire base and sides of the dish.

4. Pour your apple filling straight onto the pastry and make sure it's packed in evenly.

5. Whisk the egg with a small splash of milk (egg wash).  Brush some of the egg wash around the edge of the pie crust.

6. Roll the other portion of pastry out to 1/2 cm thick.  Roll the pastry over the rolling pin and unroll it over the top of the pie.

7. Fold the edges of the pastry in and crimp them together with your fingers.

8. Brush the top of the pie with the egg wash.

9. Cut a few slits in the top of the pie - to let steam escape as it bakes.  I also sprinkled the top of my pie with some white sugar.

10. Bake the pie for about 40 minutes until the crust is golden and firm.

Let the pie cool, then enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie

This recipe comes by way of one of the teachers I had on camp in high school, Ms Bahn.  She introduced myself and my friends to pumpkin pie.  This recipe is delicious and homey, very spicy (as in ginger/cinnamon etc, not chili) and easy to make as well!  The recipe makes a very large volume, so if you only need a little pie for the family you could probably halve the recipe.

Ingredients - makes enough to feed ten people
2 cups cooked pumpkin, mashed
1 tbsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
500g white sugar
1 tbsp salt
3 tbsp flour
4 cups milk
Ground cinnamon and ginger to taste
Puff/shortcrust pastry

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 190 C (375 F).  Cook the pumpkin and mash it.  I steamed my pumpkin and just used a fork to mash it up.

2. Mix the vanilla, eggs, sugar, salt, flour and milk into the pumpkin.  Flavour it to your liking with ground cinnamon and ginger.

3. Prepare your chosen receptacles with puff pastry or shortcrust pastry.  I used some shortcrust pastry and a square casserole dish as well as a cupcake tin.  Make sure that you swipe the dishes/tins with a bit of butter before you put the pastry in because they do tend to stick!

4. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the pastry-lined receptacles and bake.  If you're doing a large pie (like mine in a casserole dish), you'll need about 1 hour but the littler ones in the cupcake tin will only take about 30 minutes.

Depending on your oven and the size of your pies, this will vary so use your own judgement!  When it's done, the pie will be solid but should jiggle a bit when the dish is moved.

(You can make mini pumpkin pies in individual souffle ramekins for easy eating.)

5. Let the pie/s cool and consume at your leisure.  They taste good cold out of the fridge, as well as when they're heated up or straight out of the oven.

Yum!

Mini Lemon Meringue Pies

Hello there!  -shouts into the abyss of the Internet-

I know it's been a while since I was last here - in the meantime, I've been travelling, completing high school and, of course, baking!  So, I've mustered enough oomph to sort through all the food photos I have lying around and start posting again.

To make these mini lemon meringue pies (or, as I like to call them, Lemon Meringue Pielets), I used this recipe.  The detailed recipe and ingredients can be seen there.

First, I made the pastry and cut it into circles with a cookie cutter, then pressed the circles into cupcake trays and individual fluted moulds.  I then cut squares of baking paper and filled them with ceramic baking beans (you can also use rice or other uncooked beans as loading).

I whipped the lemon filling up while they baked, then poured the filling up to the edges of the pastry after they came out of the oven.

After the pies were baked, I piped the meringue icing onto the top.

After the meringue icing was piped on, I used my little handheld torch (I like to call it my flamethrower) to brown the meringue.  It gives it a lovely caramelised flavour.

One thing I particularly love about lemon meringue pie is the contrast.  The shortcrust pastry has a bit of a crunch and is only a little sweet, the lemon is smooth in texture and slightly tart, while the meringue topping is sweet and fluffy.

Having pielets is a good option for parties and office birthdays when you don't want to be cutting up and serving up a cake.  Plus, they look so cute!

Lemon Meringue Pie for a special birthday

It was my Auntie's birthday on the 12th, and I asked her what birthday cake she wanted for the big family dinner.  She said she'd like Lemon Meringue Pie, or something else citrussy.

Lemon Meringue Pie?  I can do that.

Thank you to my little cousin (my Auntie's daughter) who helped me mix things and posed beautifully while I snapped photos, and to Mum who made the meringue topping.  You were both great helps!

Recipe Source: Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion (pastry and filling), The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book (meringue icing)

Shortcrust Pastry

This pastry is fantastic - it has a nice texture, crunch and can be used for sweet or savoury dishes.

Pastry Ingredients

180g unsalted butter/margarine

240g plain flour

Pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter/margarine)

1/4 cup water

Pastry Method

There are more difficult ways to do this, but this is how I do it and it's dead easy.

1. Chop the butter or margarine into squares and put them into a food processor along with the flour and salt.

Whizz the food processor round until the mixture looks a bit like breadcrumbs:

2. Pour in the water...

And keep whizzing until the dough looks like this:

3. Package up the dough in clingwrap and leave it in the fridge for about half an hour.  Longer, and if you're using butter it'll go really hard.  (I did this.  I know.)

Filling

A delicious, soft, lemon filling.  Not too tart, not too sweet.

Filling Ingredients

6 eggs

250g caster sugar

3 large lemons - zested and juiced (I used my Great-Grandma's home grown lemons; they're fantastic!)

200mL cream

Blind Baking

(If you're comfortable making the filling, then put the pastry in the oven to blind bake it first and make the filling while the pastry bakes.  If you are less confident, make the filling first and then blind bake the pastry).

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Roll out the pastry dough between two sheets of baking paper to about 1/2cm thickness.

3. Line the bottom of a 20cm diameter springform tin with baking paper; no need to butter the edges, the pastry is full of butter so will just lift of the sides.

4. Lay the pastry into the tin, try to smooth out the sides so there are no huge creases.  Don't bother about trimming the edges much - you can do that later.  Leave some pastry hanging over the edge of the tin, because the pastry shrinks when baked.  My pastry shrunk.  It happens.

5. Lay some baking paper over the pastry and fill with kidney beans, chickpeas or rice.  (Or something else - you just need something to weigh down the pastry that won't burn in the oven.  If the pastry isn't weighed down, it may become all misshapen.  This is called loading.

Mum asked if unpopped popcorn would be OK.  No, Mum, popcorn is not OK.  I'd rather not clean up popped popcorn from all over the oven).

6. Put the pastry into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.  Remove it after the 20 mins. and reset the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

Filling Method

1. Combine eggs and sugar in a bowl with a whisk.

2. Zest the lemons.  To zest, scrub the lemons' skin so they're free of dirt.  Then grate the lemons' outsides until you can just see the white pith all over.  Try not to get too much of the pith in your zest.  Tip the zest into the egg and sugar mix.

3. Cut the zested lemons in half and juice them into a new bowl.  I juiced them with a handheld juicer.  Get a strainer, hold it over the bowl with the egg, sugar and zest mixture, and tip the juice into it.  This is to strain out the giant bits of pith, innards and pips.  Whisk until combined.

4. Measure out the cream, add it to the filling mixture and whisk until combined.  Your mixture should look like this:

5. Pour the filling mixture into the blind baked pastry.  (First remove the loading, of course).

6. Put the pie in the oven at 160 degrees Celsius and bake for 35 - 45 minutes until set.  However when the tin is jiggled gently, the filling should still wobble.  Leave it to cool in the tin.  If you want, you can trim the mangy bits off - I didn't; I think it gives a nice rustic feel.

Meringue Icing

This isn't really meringue, it's called 'fluffy frosting' in the Women's Weekly book.  To me, it's a thick meringue that you don't have to bake.  The egg white is cooked by the hot sugar syrup when it's added.

Meringue Ingredients

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup water

3 egg whites

Meringue Method

1. Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan, stirring over medium head until sugar is dissolved; do not boil.

2. Increase heat and boil rapidly uncovered for 3 - 5 minutes; do not stir after syrup boils.  The syrup should reach 115 degrees Celsius.  Mum and I were glad to use our new candy thermometer!
If you don't have a candy thermometer, after the syrup has boiled for a while take it off the heat and wait for the bubbles to subside.  Then drop 1 teaspoon into cold water.  It should form a ball of soft, sticky toffee when rolled between your fingers.

The syrup shouldn't change colour - if it does, it's been cooked for too long!


3. Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks.  Beat eggs whites in an electric mixer until stiff.  Then pour the sugar syrup into the egg whites with the mixer on medium speed.  Make sure you pour the syrup slowly and in a steady stream.
This will take a while.

4. Turn off the mixer.  The meringue should be very thick and very stiff.

Assembly
1. Make sure the lemon filling is cooled.


2. If it is, lump the meringue onto the pie and spread around.  Traditionally, the meringue has a lot of peaks on it.

3. If you've got a flame-thingy, you can use it to brown the tips of the meringue.  Unfortunately, I don't have one...so my meringue stayed white as white.

Yum.

And closer...

4. Serve the Lemon Meringue Pie just by itself or with heavy cream.  It's beautiful with tea as well!

Tips and Suggestions
 - Mum and I put a lot of meringue on the pie.  The meringue was really really sweet.  I recommend that you don't use as much sugar syrup in the meringue, and perhaps don't put all the meringue on the pie.
 - Be very careful when cutting the pie, as some pieces collapsed and fell apart a bit.  This is because we cut it when it was still warm.  It'll solidify a bit it it is cooled, so make sure that it's cold before you cut.  Putting it in the fridge helps.

Enjoy!