We're taking Stephen Fry on a trip down memory lane and cooking up a perfect apple pie,
like the one his housekeeper used to make him as a boy.
So first up your initial problems with pastry have been because of warm hands? Yeah I think because
of warm hands I mean I've always assumed that's the reason that it always sticks to my hands, it
sticks to the rolling pin. I think it's probably more speed and sort of fluency and confidence,
and the classic pastry generally speaking is half fat to flour. So 500 grams of flour and
250 grams of beautiful butter. But we are making a sweet pastry so we will add some icing sugar,
and that's 100 grams. Also we're gonna flavour it with some vanilla. I love vanilla!
So now you're basically just rubbing with your fingers and thumbs. Yeah from my thumb to the
fourth and third fingers I'm going through it quite quickly now if I want a really short
pastry. Oh you can help me here! What does a short pastry mean? It means it's a high proportion of
fat so it becomes crumbly. It will also be quite fine and thin. And that's the hardest thing to
do thin pastries. Yes. Now I've got these nice little chunks, I'm gonna put two eggs in here.
So I'm gonna bring this together and just a little splash of milk, I don't want to overwork it.
We can put it on here. Now it's ready for the marble. I will cut it in half so one bit's
going to be the base one of the lid I guess. You are all over this! To make our life easy,
while it is pliable let's just start helping. So this thing about hot hands this will be a small
part of fixing that. This will go in the fridge. Glorious. And we'll let it rest but we'll also let
it firm. So I'd like to take you onto the filling, so we've peeled two kilos of apples and this is
nice because this is when we can get the apples of your childhood. The village is called Booton,
right? It is, that's right. So these are the Bootons. Yep. And this knife here this
size knife is what they call a chef's knife? Yes, well I just like a big chopper. Wahey.
Add 40 grams of butter, 100 grams of golden caster sugar, and a pinch of allspice to a
medium hot pan. So in we go with the apples. We're gonna add 200 mils of water. And we're
going to let that just cook away until it's soft. So let's get some of this pastry out. Exciting.
So to help you with the problem that you were having with hot hands, what we'll do is we'll use
greaseproof paper. A flourless rolling? Yep, put that on top. Get out, brilliant! Pay attention!
This is fabulous. What this also allows us to do is not have sticky fingers and
kind of get in a mess. Yeah. It takes a little longer. It doesn't take longer
than bursting into tears and washing your hands throwing it away and starting again.
You can see that works beautifully. Superb,
just peels off. Yep. Right we are going to place this on here. Yeah. And then just kind
of encourage and just use the soft parts of your hand. Oh so it's going right in in the
flutes. You can let this rest a little bit, so I'll put this in the fridge now.
If you look at these apples now, I'm just gonna sieve it and take the juice out,
then reduce this liquor by half. Yeah, till it becomes a lovely syrup. Yeah,
nice and thick. Are you ready for the next stage? Certainly yeah. So look here is our pastry,
I've cooked that for 15 minutes. Right. And then I took it out and I brushed it with some egg yolks,
popped it back for 15 minutes. Back in the oven? Yep back in the oven. And what we've done...
Because of the glaze. And a waterproof layer. No soggy bottoms here. Now we're gonna get our pastry
out again. This is the top layer this is for the lid. Yes. We're going to do a kind of lattice,
now this is the exciting bit, we're gonna show off. Yeah exactly yeah as you say...
bejazzled, vajazzled. Vajazzling. Yes thank you. I'd forgotten for a moment I was in Essex.
You've got to look after your South end.
So what we have here is another pastry. Oh yes. And this is where I'm going to take
this roller instead of a knife and I'm gonna use the ruler, and I am gonna just cut it like this.
It's laborious. But satisfying, yes. So what we're going to do now is lay our sheets on here
and then we're going to go half at a time. To lift every other one? Yes you've got it.
We're going to start to lay these little bad boys across. So it's how you interweave the
strips is the key? Yes. So now I've gone down and I've pulled this up and it's the opposite.
Right. So you go over the horizontal. Yeah, I just don't want it to break or snap. No,
and do you know there's a very good word for a crispy breakable thing like a good
pastry which I've always liked because it has my name in it, it's friable it's an Old English
word yeah. Did you do really well at school? I was always good at exams but I was very badly
behaved so I was thrown out of a lot of schools. Were you? Oh yes I was expelled. Were you? Yes,
I was an awful child. Monstrous, wicked, dreadful! Look at this, while I've been talking...
And round of applause for Jamie Oliver! Look at that,
that's stunning. We are picking up from where Mrs R left off. We sure are. So we do need to
do the rose. How would you normally do it? I'm trying to remember... you're gonna do a square
over here. Okay. It's something like that... that is definitely not a rose.
Would you like a little cheats way to do it? Yes please. Take a little circle like this and
if you line it up like this, slightly overlapping, and you cut it in half, you roll it up. Oh yes!
That's the effect she somehow got. So look. Oh that's glorious. To add even more Indulgence
we're making some pastry stems and leaves, then leaving the lid to chill back in the fridge.
This is the exciting bit because we're making it now. Another little cheat what you can do is use a
speed peeler and just trim it down. That's clever. So back to the filling remember we sieved it and
we reduced this lovely... look how jellified that is. The best apple pies have that in,
don't they? Yeah. Now if you can sprinkle the black berries in. So we'll have chunks of apple
and little bursts of blackberry. This is one of my favourite jobs. ever. Yeah, professional
blackberry dropper. Yeah, bramble tosser. Right let's get our pastry back. What we can do now is
just take that off the side. And it doesn't even flop down. And it doesn't flop down, I mean you've
got to be careful. And then what we can do is put this on, and then let's do this together because I
feel like we've probably bonded over this. Yeah. So just find the edge and then just use your
weight to push your finger and use your thumb to cut it off the edge. Ah so it really does cut off,
it's just exquisite. So what I'm going to do now is just a little bit of brushing and get
some sugar just sprinkled on top, not too much. So this now go to the oven 180 for about 40 minutes.
Magical! See you later darling. We're going to make a creme Chantilly. Oh! So this is double
cream. We will also add just a little sugar and just a little vanilla and a light whisking.
Oh yes. Are you a custard boy? I love the taste of it but the skin literally makes me heave.
I used to forge letters from my mother to the school to say I wasn't to eat any milk puddings,
but they saw through that straight away. If you carry on whipping that. I will happily do that.
I have some non-skinned custard. Very good.
It's thickening. And the trick is to not over-whip it of course. No.
Now, are you ready for the moment? Is it ready? Look and that! Oh, bravo! And look how it's cooked
so beautifully. So then the question is can we take it out. Oh you can do it in your arm! Wow...
Ta-da!
Yes yes. Jimmy! Okay we have the Chantilly... Ooh that's glossy and gloopy and gorgeous.
Hot custard! Stephen Fry are you ready for your moment? Yes, oh!
It's almost too beautiful to cut isn't it? It really is it's sensational! Look at that! Wow...
Um, would you like custard or cream or both? I'll have a little bit of both I think. Oh
my god I agree with you. Got to try a bit of both
Oh, heavens. May I?... Enjoy. Oh!
Mm!
Heaven, it's heaven!