Homemade Traditional Apple Pie

My Homemade Traditional Apple Pie

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp raw caster sugar

250g organic unsalted butter

1/4 cup milk

1kg apples

1/8 cup raw caster sugar

1/8 cup brown sugar

1/8 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp cornflour

1 tsp cinnamon

Method

First, make the pastry. Have a bowl ready.

Chop the chilled butter into cubes and place on a bench with the flour and salt.

Use a rolling pin to roll the butter with the flour.

Do this for about a minute then return to the fridge in a bowl to re-chill the butter.

This is important as we are making nice flaky pastry and the butter has to remain cold to form layers without melting and forming globs.

Roll the mixture again, folding over a few times to keep mixture together.

Return to the bowl and add the milk. Bring together with your hands.

 Separate into two balls (1/3 and 2/3 of the mix)

Refridgerate both, separately covered in plastic wrap.

 Meanwhile, weigh out just under a kilo of mixed apples.

Peel (a ceramic peeler was excellent here), core and slice the apples.

Add cinnamon, sugars and salt. Leave in bowl to macerate for 15 minutes. 

Make a tea...peruse the garden...

Then, place the apples in a sieve or colander above the bowl to allow the juices to drain out.

While waiting for the apples to drain, roll out the pastry and line to pie dish.

Place larger refridgerated pastry on a well floured benchtop.

Allow to warm up for about 5 minutes then start rolling out.

Roll to the size of the pie dish plus an extra 10cm for the edges.

 

 Lay pastry over pie dish

 Trim edges with a sharp knife

Place in the fridge covered in plastic wrap.

Back to the apples: reduce the apple juices in a saucepan by about one third so they are syrupy.

Pour back into bowl with apples and add the cornflour and mix well.

Add this to the pie and return to the fridge.

Roll out the remaining dough into strips and make a lattice over the pie. 

Place in fridge covered for 30 minutes to allow the pastry to relax.

Preheat oven to 190 C, then bake for approximately 40-45 minutes.

Serve with creamy chardonnay!

Spiced Poached Pears with Vanilla Mascarpone

Spiced Poached Pears with Vanilla Mascarpone

Mum cooked this for Dad and I and it was wonderful and not too sweet. The pears were like marinated meat - the flavours and spices absorbed into the flesh during the hour of cooking.

Ingredients:
500ml (2 cups) dry red wine

70g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
2 whole star anise
2 x 7cm cinnamon sticks
1 tsp vanilla bean extract
4 just-ripe packham pears, peeled
1 x 250g ctn mascarpone
2 tbs icing sugar mixture
1 tsp vanilla bean extract

Method:
Combine the wine, sugar, star anise, cinnamon and vanilla bean in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Add the pears and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, turning occasionally, for 1 hour or until pears are tender. Remove pears and set aside.

Increase heat to high and bring the syrup to the boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until syrup thickens slightly. Pour over the pears.

Place the mascarpone, icing sugar and vanilla extract in a medium bowl and stir to combine.

Transfer the pears to a serving dish and drizzle with syrup. Serve with mascarpone.

Tomatoes!

  Tomatoes in the hundreds.

Arriving back to Dubbo this January was an exciting time and collecting many hundreds of tomatoes was a welcome delight.

 These overripe red cherry's (var. 'Tommy Toe') were destined for a relish or ketchup of some sort.

I am so happy to be able to pick some fresh produce now I am back.

Then we arrived at Jess and Geoff's place where they have kindly invited us to stay while we are waiting to move into a place down the road. They have taken great care of our vegies and herb pots we left at their place over Christmas, extending their irrigation systems to provide water to them, especially our thirsty tomato vines. The following assortment of delightfully colourful Heirloom tomatoes is the result!

 Geoff and Jess have a little aclove that is protected on three sides and faces south so the heat isnt too severe in summer where they have tree ferns and herbs and tomatoes. The big ones you see are from the corners of the little aclove and taste amazing - there is a big dark reddish purple tomato that had hints of all sorts of flavours if you let your imagination go wild.......shiraz depth...and overall an earthy, meaty tomato great for our lunch sangas.

 The bright orange heirloom tomatoes were creamy in texture, much like a persimmon, but not sweet.. more savoury with a tang - perfect for a relish where other sweet things are added.

 Geoff, Daniel and Jess with the goodies.

 I picked over them for my favourites (wild sweeties) then throughout the week we made Bolognese, Burgers, Relish and Ketchup.

 A little truss of lemon drops (var. 'Yellow Beams Pear').

Little gems (var. 'wild sweetie').

Strawbs

I found these in the patch by the admin building here. There were so many rotting away I decided to pick a whole frisbee load and eat them like my Nana used to - dusted with caster sugar!

Pear, Persimmon and a plethora of other fruits Bread

Happy Sunday

Today I woke up and had a nice walk through the park to the little store to buy some wholemeal flour. I was set out to bake a wholesome loaf of fruit bread this morning so I can also take some to work next week to share.

I have been going to the markets at Chinatown in Sydney City every Thursday now, and a friend from work pointed out persimmons to me. I have had them once before and I remembered they have a slightly sweet cinnamon taste when just ripe. However, at the markets they are commonly named 'Fugi/Persimmons' because they are hard to tell apart. They have similar properties so I bought three plump colourful 'Hachiya' ones (elongated and sweeter than round ones) to inspire me to bake something.

I also bought a dozen small green and red pears, walnuts, cranberries and bananas.

By Today, I have one banana left that is very overripe, and the persimmons are very ripe also. I decided to bake some bread (that is more like cake because it has no yeast) with these lovely fruits full of vitamins and complimentary flavours.

Todays Cake:
"Pear, persimmon & plethora of other fruits bread"

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons of hot water
¼ cup honey
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil or margarine
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
1 large egg, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
½ cup chopped persimmon (approx. 1 ½ overly ripe persimmons or 'fugis')
½ cup banana purée
½ cup chopped ripe pear
Handful of dried figs and dried cranberries 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups wholemeal plain flour
1 cup walnuts

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160’C degrees.
2. Soak chopped figs and cranberries in 2 tablespoons of hot water.
3. Grease an approx 23x12cm loaf pan or square cake pan. Line the bottom with a piece of baking paper.
4. In a large bowl, beat vegetable oil (or margarine) and honey together.
5. Add egg and mix well.
6. Stir in chopped fruits, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla essence.

7. Stir in flour and salt.
8. Add bicarbonate of soda to 1 tablespoon of hot water, stir to mix, and then add to the mixture. 9. Stir in chopped nuts.
10. Spread mixture into pan evenly and sprinkle with additional walnuts, cranberries and cinnamon
5. Bake for 30min or until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.
Optional: Grill top for a couple of minutes to brown the nuts and caramelise the crust
Serve with thick Natural Organic Yoghurt