apple, honey and custard pie! (and a new arrival)

*blows cobwebs off keyboard*

 Hulloooo! Firstly I like you guys to meet the newest member to our home, this is Ruby the Sprollie! 

She's a springer spaniel crossed with a border collie and I haven't posted anything since we got her because she is a hyper active mess machine (as you can probably imagine, two hyperactive breeds crossed together, what were we thinking!?). So I finally got round to taken some pictures while she had quietened  done in the evening, hence all the dramatical lighting, IT WAS PITCH BLACK! So this is no ordinary pie, this is a dramatical super duper apple pie!

Our rough collie Jacob seems to be getting used to her now, though he just tends to stay out of the way, and our cocker Bex seems to have found herself a play mate!

excuse me while I spam my own blog post with pictures of dogs.....

Back to pie now!

So with this dramatic apple pie....... the day I made this pie I had been fully apple out! We have around 5 apple trees in our garden all with different kinds of apples (we don't know what sort because the labels came off!) so we took them all to be pressed and made into juice and cider, So we know have 3 gallons of cider fermenting in our house and litres and upon litres of juice and tonnes and tonnes of apples still on the trees!

 So if you guys have any great apple recipes you wouldn't mind sharing I'd love to hear! (:

I don't know about anybody else but to me apple pie is just the mother of all pies, and we always have it with custard, but this recipe from 'The Great British Farmhouse Cookbook by Sarah Mayor' (it's an amazing cookbook) combine the two together to create thin layers of heaven upon heaven, thin slices of apple with custard in between the cracks, it is gorgeous! 

That is some dramatic apple peeling! It reminds me of my favourite pie quote, which just so happens to be about apple pie! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae50P_ajLxA , you've gotta love chicken run!

apple, honey and custard pie (serves 10)

 ingredients

pastry-

• 350 grams of plain flour
• 50 grams of self-raising flour
• 50 grams of cornflour
• 275 grams of chilled butter, cubed
• 100 grams of caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks mixed with 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and 2 table spoons of cold water

filling-

• 1.25 kilo grams of cooking apples
• 2 egg yolks
• 100 grams of honey
• 1 tablespoon of self-raising flour
• 250 millilitres of double cream
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

extra-

• beaten egg
• demerera sugar

1. grease a loose bottomed flan tin (we used 21 cm one)
2. mix the pastry flour together, put into a food processor and add the butter, blitz until it looks like bread crumbs. Add in the caster sugar and egg yolk mix, blitz again until it forms a ball
3. once the dough is formed knead the dough until everything is fully mixed, cut off a 1/3 and wrap before putting in the fridge (for the topping)
4. place the bottom of the flan tin on the worktop, place the remaining dough onto the centre and begin rolling it out evenly in all directions until it is as thick as a pound coin, lift the pastry and tin bottom up and drop into the tin, leave an overhang and chill for 15 mins
5. preheat the oven to 170 oC / 150oC fan / gas mark 3
6. peel and slice the apples into thin slices so you get layers of apple with custard in between
7. whisk together the yolks, honey and flour before adding the cream and vanilla, spread the apple into the chilled pie before covering with the custard 
8. knead and role out the remaining 1/3 of dough and any scraps to form the pie top, roll into a circle the same thickness as the pie before brushing the top and pie edges with some beaten egg
9. place the top on the pie, press on and cut off any over hangings, brush all over with egg, sprinkle with sugar and cut a cross in the middle or a small hole bake for 1 - 1 1/2 hours until the top is golden 
10. leave to cool slightly before turning out and enjoying, with extra custard of course!