First we cut up 17 tablespoons of unsalted butter into 1/2 inch chunks and popped them in the freezer to get them stone cold in a jiffy.
When they were ready, we tossed them into a food processor with 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, a pinch of sea salt, and 1 tablespoon of super fine castor sugar. We whizzed it all up, keeping it on the chunky side and then added 2/3 of a cup ice cold water pulsing it some more, trying to get it all into a rough dough.
Then we finished the dough up by hand, forming
2 flat patties. We wrapped them up in plastic wrap and stuck them into the fridge for an hour.
Next we peeled, cored and cut up a 4 1/2 lb medley of various organic apples. We made two equal piles; one with small 1/2" pieces, the other with big meaty chunks.
Along the way we doused the apples with the juice of 1 lemon to keep them from browning. (Of course that also extended an open invitation to the girls' nibbling fingers.)
We melted 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter and 1/2 cup of light brown sugar (we could not drum up any muscovado sugar specifically as the recipe suggested) and then added a good pinch of ground cinnamon.
Then Lily added the big apple chunks and cooked them for about 8 minutes. When they were halfway to semi-soft we added the small pieces for another 4 minutes or so until we liked their consistency. We wanted them to still have a little soft bite to them.
We took the apples off the stove and spread them on baking trays to let them cool completely.
Now we turned the oven to 375F and rolled out the first dough patty with plenty of flour, flipping it around occasionally.
When we got it to about 1/8 of an inch we wrapped the dough around the rolling pin and unloaded it over a 10" baking dish.
We filled it with the apples, tucking them in nice and tight, and dapped the edges with a little bit of 1 whisked egg, using it as a sort of glue.
Then we rolled out the second pieced of dough, cut out a few hearts (apparently the pie needs a hole to let off some steam), and draped it over the apples, pressing down the edges. With a knife we cut around the side of the dish, discarding any extra dough.
We found a fork and pressed down the edges.
Almost done.
All that was left was to use the remaining eggwash to cover the pie and
for Lily to drizzle on 2 tablespoons of demerara sugar from a distance.
We baked the yumminess for 50 minutes.
To eat we whipped up some heavy cream adding a little of the castor sugar to convince the crowd. Personally we thought that vanilla ice cream might work well with it too. But then again, the pie was so rich of fine flavors it would do it quite an injustice to mess around with other sideshows. It was an absolute delight. We devoured it while it was still steaming.
