Greetings Gastronauts, this is Keef Cooks, I’m Keef
and today I’m going to do something absolutely marvellously wonderful.
It's a pie. It's a sweet pie. It's the ultimate apple pie!
[ MUSIC ]
So this was requested by Hazel B a couple of years ago I think.
And so I finally got around to it and it - well she wanted
‘proper apple pie’ and I reckon this will qualify. And to all Americans who lay claim to this as
being their iconic thing - it's as American as apple pie - I’ll just point out that
apple pie was recorded in 1390 in England and that apples are not native to North
America - they were brought by European settlers. But I’m sure you'll love it anyway.
So if you enjoy this video give it a like, share, subscribe. And let's get on with it - apple pie.
Now I’m going to prep the filling so I’ve got one kilo of apples, 70 grams of white granulated
sugar, 70 grams of demerara sugar and 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon,
half a teaspoon of ground ginger, and a quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg.
And later on when the fruit has macerated we'll need two teaspoons of tapioca flour.
Now I can't get tapioca flour but I just happen to have
cassava flour which is what tapioca is made from. I don't know why I’ve got it but I’ve had it
for quite a while - this is the first chance I’ve had to use it.
If you can't get that you can use cornflour - corn starch - which is very common.
So these apples from me garden - except for these three which are from the supermarket.
And these are eating apples so they're y’know sweet.
But these ones are very tart they're - I think they're crab apples actually.
You want tart apples ideally Bramleys are what people usually use for apple pie.
But these will be pretty fab as well. So I’ve got to peel these, core them and slice them.
Come back in half an hour. This recipe is quite different from
lots of regular apple pie recipes - for one thing, you don't pre-cook the apples.
But we do macerate them in the spices and the sugar and what that does basically it just
makes it super juicy. In fact a lot of the water will come out
but you'll get a juicy syrup. So what I need to do is just mix all these together in a bag.
[ SHAKE, RATTLE, ETC ]
Okay and then as we slice the apples
we'll pop them in the bag straight away so they don't go brown.
And shake them up, give them a bit of a massage so they get all coated
in the good stuff. Now ...
I still haven't got an apple corer - they always break anyway they're a bit, y’know, rubbish.
[ CHOP ]
But I have got a metal tube - this is actually for making cream
horns but I’ve never used it for that. So I’m just going to whack this through
the middle.
[ THUMP THUMP BANG WALLOP ]
Missed!
[ LAFFS ]
And peel the apple.
You know what - if I put that on a rotating spindle I could do it like a lathe and that would
save, ooh, minutes! Minutes of time that would save. Right let's
get the core out. There it goes.
[ SLICE SLICE SLICE ]
So get those all proper coated,
and then I’ll just leave that, not in the fridge, just leave it out for two or three hours to macerate.
And basically we want the volume of the apples to reduce to two-thirds of what it is now.
So leave that alone, turn it over like every half hour.
Macerating has had quite a bit of time - two and a half hours I think.
So there's a fair bit of liquid accumulated in the bottom.
I can't actually tell if that's reduced in volume - I think it has quite a bit - so
I’ll just let that carry on and I'll make the pastry. So I’ve got 350 grams of plain all-purpose flour,
225 grams of unsalted butter, 50 grams of caster sugar - powdered sugar, and one egg.
I’ll also have a little bit of cold water to just bring it together at the end.
So what we need to do first of all oh I’ll mix the sugar in 'cos that'll be
easier to do when it's all ordinary powder form. And then we rub in the butter using our fingertips
and we do that until we get something that looks like coarse sand.
Summat like that. So now we'll whack the egg in…
and a little splash of water. We want just enough water to make it come together in a ball
but if you add too much you can't get it out.
There you go, done it. Now we'll wrap it in plastic fillum
and leave it in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.
Okay it's time to put the pie together.
So I’ve got a dish which is 22 centimetres - eight and a half inches – diameter.
And never been used, I don't think. But I’m still going to grease it with butter
because I don't trust non-stick coating. All right there's me pastry. Flour on the worktop
Take a bit over half the dough.
So to get your pastry into the tin just roll it over your rolling pin
and then unroll it over the tin. That saves a lot of agony!
And just trim off the excess. Now we need to sort out the filling.
Separate the apples from the juice.
Two teaspoons of semolina flour or cassava flour or cornstarch or corn flour.
[ SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE ]
Now I’m just going to pour some of the liquor in – the syrup.
Now, I’m going to do a lattice top, because I like doing lattice tops.
So normally when you do a lattice you do it with quite narrow strips but I fancy doing a wide one
and that should be a bit quicker as well. So I’ll moisten the rim with water
and then put one strip on - just stick it down at one end.
Now I’m going to do the - if that's the warp this will be the weft.
We need to peel back alternate strips.
Okay. Put it back and peel back these three.
And so on. There we are.
Now I’m just going to tidy up the edge and then we want to get the oven preheating to 180 degrees Celsius for a fan
oven - convection oven. That's 200 for a
conventional one and that's gas five. If you're just doing a regular, y’know, flat top
you'll need to cut some slits in it to let the steam escape.
Now we need to glaze the pie so I’ve got a beaten egg
and a sploosh of milk - technical term, sploosh. Then we just paint the top of the pie and the rim
with the egg wash and that goes in the oven for quite a lot longer than pies normally go in for.
So you want the internal temperature to reach 90 degrees Celsius and for the
slices of apple to feel soft. Okay it's actually been 50 minutes.
Well, 92...
So yeah, that's done, that's done and the top looks fantastic.
Just let that cool down. I’m going to make some chantilly cream.
Okay shonteee cream is probably the easiest thing ever in the history of the universe.
So you want 200 ml of double cream - heavy cream.
A sploosh of vanilla extract or real vanilla or bean paste or whatever.
And a tablespoon of caster sugar.
So I’ve got the cream in there I’ll just add my sploosh of vanilla extract.
[ MACHINE WHIRRIN ]
I might have slightly over whipped it - it's very firm but…
It's amazing.
Fantastic, amazing, wonderful
apple pie and Chantilly cream. And I’ve had a sneaky taste because I was hungry.
[ BACKGROUND MUSIC ]
Here we go…
I could be wrong, but I think that is actually the best apple pie I’ve ever had in my life.
So I think that y’know maybe the macerating is a bit of a faff, but it's absolutely
worth doing that is absolutely utterly marvellous. So make it and thanks for watching. And see you
next time. [ MUSIC ]