My First Try at Pie

I did it. I made pie.

Wednesday again and I'm talking 'homely matters'. I have only made pastry once to my knowledge and that was over 20 yrs ago at school when I apparently made a quiche. I've always been a little daunted by the science of pastry - keeping it all cool and not touching it too much etc. Why make pastry when you can so easily buy the ready roll? Well, just because it's on my list of things to master and it's so much cheaper.

If you want evidence of my efforts, read on. If you are an expert pastry maker forgive me for being so basic. Hopefully I will progress to more exciting things.

So, the pastry making - I took a few hints from the interweb and put my ingredients in the fridge first to cool them. In retrospect, I probably should have kept out the butter as it was so cold that it took a long time to rub in to the flour.

Once rubbed in, I added the water. It looked really soggy and I thought it was a disaster but when I used the knife to draw it into a ball it seemed better. I wrapped it in clingfilm and bobbed it into the fridge for 30 mins.
Next came the apple cooking – that bit I could manage as I make apple sauce often. In went the cinammon and the sugar and then came the scary part, the rolling out. I made sure there was plenty of flour on the counter top and rolling pin and then I rolled. Miraculously – it was ok. I think the pie dish was a little big for the amount of pastry but I rolled it quite thinly so there was plenty of overlap.

Now the tricky part – transferring the pastry to the dish. When I’ve seen other people do it, it always looks so easy – just roll it gently round the rolling pin and unroll over the dish. Mmmm … not so easy but I did manage it after a couple of tries.

The filling went in along with some berries (Mr K doesn’t like plain food so it needed a little extra something to go with the apple) and then the lid went on. It was a relief to get to that stage but the fun wasn’t over yet.  Let's just say that pinching the edges is an art that I need to practice some more!

I popped the pie into the oven feeling very pleased with myself and my brother rang to tell me he had an interview this afternoon with St John’s Ambulance. Now my brother doesn’t ring very often so I gave him my full attention and I was on the phone for a while. The pie was in the oven slightly longer than it should have been and when I took it out of the oven it quite dark on top. Still, it looked like a pie (not a dainty girlie apple pie – more like a manly meat and potato pie but a pie nevertheless)

So pie number one was made and my fear of pastry conquered but as they say, the proof of the pudding ….

Unfortunately I can’t have dairy or gluten so it was up to Mr K to assess my efforts. The verdict was very positive. Apparently the pastry on top was lovely and light but I think the bottom pastry sort of disappeared into the filling.  Mr K liked it that way but I would have prefered it to be a little thicker. Anyway a second piece was called for so I was happy. In order not to be left out, I made a little batch of gluten/dairy free pastry and a little pie of my own! The pastry was far more crumbly but I managed in a fashion to get it rolled out and into the dish. It tasted deeelicious! It's literally years since I last had apple pie. How could I have gone so long without it? There's some left for tomorrow too and I think that custard is on the cards. Hope you're having something tasty today. x