Apple Crumble Pie

My boyfriend started a new job on monday, so I decided I wanted to make him a yummy dinner. For the main we had fish pie, which he just loves. To me a dinner is not complete without a pudding. I had been asking my boyfriend for a while what pudding he fancied and he asked for an apple pie. I though an apple pie just sounded a little dull but I wanted to give him what he wanted, he often ask's for something quite simple and I make something the complete opposite. So I started to make the apple pie. Call it fate or luck on my part but I did not have enough butter to make enough pastry. So thinking on my feet I thought, what else can I make, I thought I could just make an apple cumble, another of my boyfriends favourites, but this just didn't seem special enough for the occation. I thought why not combine the two! A moment of genius I thought! It turned out just scrummy. The pastry was crisp, the apples were rich, soft, buttery with lots of cinnamon and the cumble was light and biscuity.  

The apples cooking with butter, sugar and cinnamon, it smelt delicious. Be careful not to over cook them as they will be cooked again once in the pie.

The pie ready to go in the oven, I brushed it with milk, I should have used egg so that it went golden brown, it was a little pale, as you can see in the picture below.

The finished pie, I served it hot with some vanilla icecream. And most importantly my boyfriend loved it. Which is a good job as it is a large pie and we will be eating it for days!

Apple Crumble Pie.

Pastry

250g Plain Flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

110g Butter

Put the flour, salt and butterin an electric mixer and mix until a sandy consistency and is all combined. Add a tablespoon of water and beat until well mixed, then add a second tablespoon of water and beat until you have a smooth even dough, if still too dry add a little more water. 

wrap in cling film and leave to rest for an hour. During this time make the apple filling. 

Apple Filling

100g butter

1.5kg apples, peeled and sliced

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

180g caster sugar

Melt the butter in a large saucepan, once the butter has melted add the apples and stir until they are well coated in butter, then add the sugar and cinnamon. Cook untill soft but not too soft as they will be baked again inside the pie. Then leave the filling to cool. Meanwhile make the crumble.

Crumble topping

110g butter

55g caster sugar

55g demerera sugar

200g flour

Rub the butter, sugar and flour together until you have crumble.  

Method

Pre heat the oven to 170oC. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured board then line a deep pie dish. Trim the edges to make it neat. Add the cooled apple filling and top with the crumble. Brush the pastry edge and any pastry decoration with beaten egg. Cook on the middle shelf for 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool for half and hour then slice and serve with vanilla icecream.