Our Bramley Apple Pie

I have loved apple pie since I was a young kid. Amanda was not a big fan of it but recently she started to fancy it. I believe it is one of the most famous desserts in the Western world and it is frequently served with custard, cream or vanilla ice-cream. Mmmmmm, delicious, I want a warm slice now!! Lately we started using ready-made pastry as it is of good quality and it really saves you time in the kitchen. Try this pie out, it is quite easy to do, we sliced the Bramleys using our food processor but you can easily thinly slice them with a knife. We also soaked our raisins in fresh orange juice for about an hour so they plump up and get a unique distinctive flavour. If you have leftover pastry and apple mixture, you can do other small pies! For a 24-25cm pie you will need...

• 1kg Bramley apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 140g caster sugar
• 4 tbsp flour
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground aniseed
• 70g raisins
• 1 juice of an orange
• 1 sheet ready-made shortcrust pastry
• Flour, for dusting

1. Start by soaking the raisins in the orange juice and set them aside.
2. Preheat the oven to 190°C.
3. In a large mixing bowl put the sliced apples, sugar, 4 tablespoons flour, cinnamon & aniseed and mix them well until apples are coated in sugar and flour. Set aside.
4. Dust the work surface with some flour and roll the pastry sheet, cut it in half and thin it out until it is half size in thickness.
5. Grease a 23 to 25cm pie dish and put half the pastry sheet on the dish, make sure it is loose. Now fill the dish with abundant apple mixture and cover with the other half of the pastry sheet. Seal well the edges and snip the top of the pie with scissors in various parts so as the steam can escape. Sprinkle with some extra sugar.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for about 35-40 minutes. Take out of the oven and leave to set for about 15 minutes.
7. Slice and serve cold or warm, plain, with cream, custard or even vanilla ice-cream.

Enjoy!!

R&A