To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the traditional apple pie. The shortcrust pastry can be dense and cloying, and the apple filling prone to being thick and pasty. I also think that most apple pies are overly sweet, with the delicate flavours of the apple getting a little lost with all the sugar.

So lately I’ve been on a mission. I’ve made four apple pies over the last couple of weeks, testing out various different methods, pastries, and flavours, and I have now settled on my own signature version of the classic that I’m really happy with. And I’m even more delighted that my fussy kids actually liked eating it! 😀

So here are my conclusions:

Firstly, the apples matter. Although there’s nothing wrong with using whatever you can get your hands on, I am firmly of the belief that the best thing to use are dessert apples rather than cooking apples. The double edged sword with dessert apples is that they hold their texture and shape very strongly, so you’ll need to cook them down really well before baking. The extra effort is definitely worth it though – you’ll get better texture, flavour, and a nice attractive cut on your finished pie.

I chose a selection of different eating apples, to give some subtle variety in texture and also flavour. You will need to peel, core and slice a whole bunch of apples, so having some mechanical assistance is very useful. Placing your freshly sliced apple pieces into a large bowl of water and some lemon juice will stop the apples from browning, and you would be well advised to do this given how long all the peeling and slicing can take…

When all your apples are prepared, you will need to make a caramel in which to cook the apples down. If I were making this pie only for adults, I would add a lot more cinnamon and some nutmeg, but as I have a couple of kids with sensitive tastebuds, I go really easy on the spice. I also use a mixture of white and brown sugar, whereas if you are making an apple pie for adults only, I think using all brown sugar is a tastier option.

One quick note on cinnamon – I use ceylon cinnamon, which is true cinnamon. The cheaper cassia variety (fake cinnamon) is significantly less flavourful, and you will probably need twice as much. Cassia cinnamon is actually poisonous in large quantities, so I would really recommend that you don’t use it at all – I’m actually kinda surprised that anybody would buy it if they knew what an inferior product it is. If your cinnamon is not clearly labelled, use your nose to find out; The ceylon is much stronger and spicier, and smells just like Big Red chewing gum. If you are not sure if it’s the good stuff or the bad stuff, it’s almost certainly the bad stuff – you will know true cinnamon when you smell it, I guarantee it!

Several recipes I’ve seen suggest adding the caramel ingredients in stages. I’ve noticed no discernible benefit to this whatsoever, so I just chuck everything in together and get it all bubbling away. When the sugar is melted and the caramel no longer feels gritty, add in the apples, all at once.

You will need to cook the apples for about 30 minutes, ideally in a wok or other large pan, stirring occasionally.

As dessert apples are quite robust, they won’t soften much during the final bake. You’ll want to aim for your final texture at this point. The apples should be soft and flexible, holding their shape, but losing their crispness.

Happily, the best way to test for texture is to eat them 😉

When you are happy with the texture of the apples, empty everything out into a heatproof dish, and leave to cool completely. I would typically cook the apples the night before I want to make the pie, and leave them to cool overnight.

Congratulations, the hardest part is already over!

I also like to start the pastry the night before. If I don’t get as far as blind baking the bottom crust, I would at least get the pastry made, so that it’s ready to go first thing in the morning.

This is my go-to flaky pastry for pies, which is a simple rough puff. It’s super easy to make, and mysteriously impresses people quite a lot! It’s barely more difficult to make that a pate briseé, so there’s really nothing to panic about…

The secret to rough puff pastry is to leave chunks of unincorporated butter in the dough, to create layers and lift. I cut cubes of cold butter into my dry ingredients, and then squash them flat between my fingers. I aim to create little shards of butter, about the size of my thumbnail.

Do not be concerned that the dough looks a little dry. The butter will continue to melt into the dough a little as you manipulate it, and a wet dough makes for a tough pastry. Just gently squash the dough until it comes together. If it’s a hot day you may want to rest the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes – but if you work quickly, it should be fine.

Roll the dough into a rough rectangle, about twice as tall as it is wide, and then letter fold it into three. Rotate the dough by 90 degrees, and repeat, so that that the dough has had two full turns, and then rest it in the fridge for 20 minutes. And that’s all the work the pastry needs 🙂

When the pastry is nice and cool, take it out of the fridge, and cut off a piece to make your base crust. Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of your pastry is a good amount. You don’t need a thick base, as you don’t actually want the base to puff up, and you will struggle to get it crisp if you roll it too thick.

When you cut the dough, you will find some surprisingly impressive lamination. It’s amazing how such minimal effort can give you such a great result. Although rough puff won’t give you anything like the rise you get from a puff pastry, it will be lovely and flaky.

Roll the dough out into a large circle, doing your best not to roll over the edges of the dough and disturb the layers that you have created. Don’t be afraid to roll the pastry very thinly here – you don’t want rise on your bottom crust anyway, so if the butter layers start to melt into the dough, it’s really not a problem.

Cut off the bulk excess of pastry, and chill the lined pie dish in the fridge for about 20 minutes; you want the pastry to be nice and firm before you do the final trim around the edges. I like to add decoration to the top crust of the pie, so I always keep the scraps until the pie is safely in the oven. You should store the scraps in some clingfilm, laying your pieces on top of each other to preserve the layers that you have created.

And then it’s time to blind bake! I like to do a trim with a sharp knife, and then lift the edges gently and replace them. This will ensure that the pastry shrinks back evenly, giving you a nice anchor for the top crust. If you have a very small lip on your pie dish, you may want to leave some pastry overhanging, so that it shrinks to meet the edge (although this is really hard to judge!), or perhaps use a fork to ‘smear’ the pastry against the edge of the pie dish, hopefully anchoring it in place.

Whichever method you choose, dock the base and sides, and then add your oven-safe clingfilm or baking parchment, and weigh down with some uncooked rice.

My cling film (Cuki Microwave) is only oven safe to 175c, so I need to bake this for a very long time! After extensive experimentation, I have found the optimum time to be 45 minutes with the rice, and then another 15 minutes with the rice removed.

That is not a typo.

This pastry needs a really long time to bake because there is so much butter in it. You may have success at higher temperatures using baking parchment, but given the pastry’s desperation to puff up, I think that would be a mistake. Luckily, rough puff is really resistant to burning, and the second layer of pastry will offer the lower crust complete protection in the second bake – this will be as brown as the crust gets. You could put some foil over the top if you’re really panicking about it burning, but I have never found this to be necessary.

When everything looks nicely golden brown, remove from the oven, and then wait for the pie dish to cool to room temperature before beginning the final assembly.

… I never said this pie was going to be easy or quick, I just said it was going to be good 😀

Squash all of your apples into the pie shell, ensuring that they fill every crack and crevice. You don’t want any air pockets in the filling, as that would greatly reduce the chances of an impressive cut in the finished pie. It’s worth taking your time here, especially as you’ve already spent so much effort getting to this point!

Roll out the remaining pastry to form a large circle, and then cut a hole in the centre to let the moisture escape from the pie as it cooks. You could use a leaf cutter if you’re feeling fancy, but I have come to prefer the look of a simple circular hole, so I use the back end of a small piping tip. Then carefully drape the pastry across the top of your filled pie, and when you are happy with the positioning, trim off the excess around the edge of the pie dish.

It’s important that your top and bottom crust are sealed well, so that your apple filling doesn’t bubble out of the sides. I like to use a little egg wash to glue the two pieces together, painting it on the bottom crust and gently pressing the raw pastry back down.

If you like, you could leave the edge plain, but I like to add a ring of leaves around the outside, glueing them in place with the egg wash, and overlapping in an unending circle. In order to achieve this, I take a folded up square of cling film, flour it well, and place it under the edge of the first leaf; this stops the pastry from sticking to the pie lid while you work your way around, allowing you to place it over the last leaf as you finish the circle.

I thought of this idea myself. I’m pretty sure I didn’t invent anything new, but I was pretty delighted with myself when the lightbulb went off 😀

Egg wash your pie well, and then it’s FINALLY ready for the oven!

I often sprinkle my pie tops with demerara sugar for a nice crunch and some sweetness. But with this pie, I don’t think the sweetness adds anything – in fact I think it just detracts from the contrast between the pastry and filling. If you really want to add sugar, just be aware that it will give you a slightly more rustic look when baked.

Then simply place the pie in a very hot oven, until gloriously golden brown 🙂

The pie should be left to cool completely before cutting.

Whilst there’s nothing to stop you tucking into it straight away, the filling will pour out like molten lava – delicious, apple-y molten lava. I have decided that this apple pie is best prepared the previous day if you want to serve it to guests; you won’t lose any of the pastry flake, and the impressive clean cut is all but guaranteed 🙂

And there it is, my perfect apple pie. Not much like the original, I know, but personally I like it so much better. Perfect with a big dollop of vanilla ice-cream 🙂

My children were both born in America, which means that we’ve been able to legitimately appropriate some wonderful new holidays into our annual calendar. Independence day is a confusing one… But my favourite, hands down, has to be Thanksgiving.

However, some of the traditional foods are highly questionable to me. Whilst green bean casserole has been an absolute revelation, things like candied yams (barf!) and even the sacred pumpkin pie leave me scratching my head. I think it’s one of those foods you need to grow up eating to enjoy, because to me it just tastes like a sickly sweet, spiced vegetable in pastry. I just don’t get it.

But the pie itself is so iconic, a Thanksgiving table would seem conspicuously bare without one. So what to do? Well, I came up with a novel solution: I made a different pie that looks orange.

I never said it was a clever solution, but at least this pie got eaten!

To make my orange tart, I tweaked the recipe of my tried and tested lemon meringue pie. Whilst I did consider that my lemon meringue pie deserved it’s own post, it would be kinda redundant as I use the same recipe for every citrus tart that I make; Since I discovered the technique of emulsifying curd with butter, I’ve never made one any other way – it’s just too damn good!

So let’s start with the pastry recipe, which conveniently makes enough for two tarts 🙂

Almost every time I make a sweet pastry, I use my mother’s recipe. It’s so full of flavour, it just seems to make everything that much more special. I think the addition of lemon zest and ground almonds is the secret. And the richness of that egg yolk can’t hurt either.

Beat some fridge cold butter until it is smooth and softened, and then add in the icing sugar, mixing until it is all combined. Add in the egg yolk, lemon zest, and milk, and beat again to incorporate.

With all your wet ingredients added, you can start to mix in the flour and ground almonds. You don’t want to do this until it looks like a finished dough, just until it clumps together in little boulders, at which point you should tip everything out onto the counter, and gently compress it into a dough. This way, it won’t become overworked and tough. This will need to be rested in the fridge for a good 30 minutes before using, otherwise it will be too soft to work with.

 

If you wanted to, you could use the ‘jigsaw’ method I outlined when making a strawberry tart, but for speed I chose to use the traditional method. Just roll out the pastry until it’s 3-4mm thick, and then drape across your tart ring. Ease it down into the sides, making sure to push it into the corners. As our filling is not going to be cooked in the pastry, you won’t run the risk of cracking – you could trim the top now if you wanted to, or you can leave it draped over the edges and trim it halfway through the baking instead.

 

Chill your tart shell in the fridge for a good 20 minutes before continuing.

Prick the base of your tart shell with a fork to stop the pastry bubbling up in the oven, then line it with some baking parchment or ovenproof clingfilm, and add rice or beans to help weigh it down. As I like to use ovenproof cling film, I need to keep the oven temperature fairly low, at 170c. I find that I get the best results from my oven if I bake for 15 minutes initially, then after removing the rice, another 12 minutes. You will need to experiment with your oven and find out what works best – every oven is different, and the temperature on the dial may be way off.

 

Whatever method you use, just make sure that your tart shell is fully baked. It should look completely dry all over, and have a tinge of golden brown all over the base.

If you are a stickler for perfection, once the tart shell is cool, you can use a fine microplane zester to trim some of the untidy bits of pastry off the edges (or even a vegetable peeler if you’re super gentle). Just make sure that you take off only a little at a time, and go slow!

So that’s all the baking done, let’s make that delicious filling! If you are going to use the rest of the pastry in the next couple of days, you could store it in the fridge. Otherwise, wrap it well and put it in the freezer where it will keep for about a month. At this time of year, I would recommend using it to make mince pies 🙂

So, the first thing you’ll want to do is extract all the flavour from the fruit. If you weigh out your sugar and stir through the zest, you’ll find that the sugar will start to draw out the oils and moisture from the citrus fruit. As we’re going to be removing the zest later, it’s important to get as much flavour out of it as we can now. You’ll want to leave this to sit for at least 5 minutes, which should give you time to get your other ingredients ready.

I’m not a huge fan of “mise en place”, which is french for ‘getting everything ready before you start’, but in this recipe it’s absolutely essential, as you need to move quickly and must stir constantly.

Be sure to have your sieve set up over your blender, and your butter all neatly cut up before you start heating anything.

This process is very similar to making a traditional lemon curd. You will need to heat the lemons, sugar and eggs over a bain-marie until the mixture thickens. This could take a while, so don’t panic if after 10 minutes it’s still looking very thin – it will happen eventually! Once it has thickened, give it another couple of minutes just to be sure you’ve reached a safe temperature for the eggs, and to ensure a firm enough texture that the  the finished tart can be sliced.

 

Pass your curd through the sieve into the the blender, pushing it through with a rubber spatula, and using a clean spatula to scrape the underside of the sieve – you don’t want to waste any on your precious filling! Your sieve will have caught all the lemon zest, as well as the spindly pieces of cooked egg white, giving you a smooth curd.

Turn the blender on, and slowly add the butter, a piece at a time. The curd will lighten in colour and texture as it blends. Once all the butter is added and incorporated, quickly pour the filling into your tart shell, as it will set up quickly. I needed an extra pair of hands to take pictures of this part as I needed to work very quickly; Hopefully you can use your imagination to envisage a blender being used 😀

If the filling is already starting to set, smooth it out as much as possible. Pop any large air bubbles that you can see, then place into the fridge to set completely.

To complete my lemon tart, I’m going to add some sweet meringue to counter the sharpness of the lemon. And as we’re not going to bake the tart any more, that means either Swiss or Italian meringue is required, so that the egg whites are safe to eat.

Actually, I made a bit of an error here, and answered the door while my egg whites were whisking. They ended up becoming over-beaten and dry before I added the sugar syrup, meaning that the final meringue was not very stable. At the time I thought it was just solid enough to hold it’s shape, but sadly it was not to be. Some strategic blowtorching can do wonders to hide a saggy meringue, but it’s no substitute for not messing up in the first place! Never mind, it still tastes amazing!

If you enjoy a tart au citron, you should seriously give this filling a try – it’s a lot creamier and lighter than a baked version, and there’s no danger of the surface cracking either 🙂

 

The orange and cinnamon tart can be made in exactly the same way, simply replacing the lemons with oranges, and adding a little cinnamon to the curd. Whilst my kids find the lemon far too sharp for their taste, I have yet to come across anyone who doesn’t think that the orange and cinnamon version is perfection!

As the orange tart is significantly sweeter than the lemon version, I think meringue would be a bit too much. Instead, I added just a little whipped cream around the edges, to provide a little textural contrast. If you are going to prepare this well ahead of time, it could be worth making a stabilised whipped cream, which you can find detailed in my recent post on eclairs.

Not too tricky, eh? And I’ve yet to come across anyone who wasn’t wowed by these tarts – quite simple to look at, but oh so delicious to eat 🙂

From the moment I discovered cannoli, I have been determined to make them. Deep-fried pastry tubes, filled with sweetened ricotta, and punctuated with candied fruits, chocolate, and nuts – they truly are delicious. I’ve had a couple of failed attempts at making the shells already, but with a new-found determination, I’m ready to take them on again.

As with any new recipe, I always like to make a traditional version before I start playing with the ingredients. But the cannoli recipes I found were so varied and contradictory, and many suspiciously ‘Americanised’ – I decided that I needed to seek out some expert help. Chatting with a Sicilian friend, I discovered that there may in fact be no ‘true’ recipe, as every Sicilian grandmother will have her own version. That being said, there do seem to be a couple of aspects that are non-negotiable; The filling must be ricotta, and the pastry must be made with sweet marsala wine.

I have always been dubious about the legitimacy of chocolate chips in cannoli, having assumed them to be an American invention, but the jury is still out on that one. Talking to a couple of other Italian friends, there seems to be no consensus as to whether these are traditional or not – I’ll leave them out for now.

So here it is – my attempt at some authentic Sicilian cannoli:

Firstly, you’ll need to drain your ricotta cheese of any excess moisture. This can be easily done by setting the ricotta in a fine mesh sieve over a bowl in the fridge. Some people would leave this overnight, but I think after an hour you will have removed enough of the moisture. If you were in a real hurry, you could squeeze this in a cheesecloth, but given how long it takes to make and cool the cannoli shells, you should have plenty of time.

The dough for the shells could hardly be simpler; rub cold butter into flour, and then add enough marsala to make a firm dough. I indicate 100mls of marsala for this recipe, but that should be more than enough – be cautious, because you can always add more, but you cannot take it away if you add too much!

Many recipes call for the addition of cinnamon or cocoa to the dough, but I prefer the simple marsala flavour; I think it is sufficiently distinct, and was probably all the flavouring that the original recipe included.

Give the dough a light knead to bring it together, then then wrap it up in cling film and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes. This will help the dough relax, and it will be much easier to roll out. This would be a perfect opportunity to cut up your candied peel and pistachios. Or have a cup of tea.

You can roll out the cannoli pastry by hand, but it’s a lot tricker to roll the pastry evenly, as well as get it to the get the correct thickness. I think it’s safe to assume that most Italians own a pasta roller, so it’s certainly not cheating! I mean, it’s basically fried pasta, isn’t it?

It’s even quicker and easier to to use an electric pasta roller if you have one – gotta love that KitchenAid. You need to start on the widest setting, and pass the dough through several times, allowing it to fall back on itself, before rolling it through again. Slowly move the rollers closer together until you have a nice thin dough. On my KitchenAid, I got the best results with dough rolled out at the number 4 setting.

When your dough is suitably thin, you should transfer it onto a lightly floured surface, and cut 10cm discs. These will then need to be wrapped around your cannoli moulds, and secured with a little egg white. This is a lot tricker then you might think. I found it easiest to flop the circles over the top the tube, and then hold it gently again my body as I painted on the egg white.

Make sure that you don’t get any egg white on the mould, or the pastry will stick to it. But don’t worry about egg white spilling out of the join, it won’t be a problem. You really need to ensure that the join is as secure as possible, otherwise the shells will unfurl as they’re frying. Press carefully but firmly, and smooth over the join with your finger.

Cannoli moulds can be easily bought online, but I have head stories that some Sicilian grandmothers will make theirs by wrapping then around sections of an old broomstick. I’m not recommending that you try this necessarily, but if you have an old one kicking around, it could be a fun experiment… let me know how that goes…

When you are ready to cook your cannoli, you’ll need to drop them carefully into hot vegetable oil. I cannot stress enough how careful you need to be about this. I found it easiest to lower one end of the tube into the oil, and then drop the other from as low as I dared. There is a very real chance that you could get a splash of hot oil on you, so for the love of God, make sure you do this near a tap, or even prepare a bowl of cold water just in case.

You should be able to tell by the colour of your shells when they are cooked, but also bear in mind that the colour will continue to darken after you remove them from the oil. My fryer churned them out perfectly at 190c for 1 minute exactly. You may have to do a little experimenting with your set up to get good results.

It’s probably worth mentioning that it’s traditional to fry the cannoli shells in lard. Perhaps this would add to the flavour profile, but I don’t think they’ll suffer too much from being fried in sunflower oil.

Use metal tongs to pick up your cannoli tubes, and transfer them to a wire cooling race. Try to pick them up by the mould, as you don’t want to crack all those lovely bubbles that have appeared on the surface of your shells. This is another place when you can injure yourself with the hot metal tubes, so be careful; and if you drop one, please be smarter than me and don’t try to catch it…

After about 15 minutes, you’ll find that the moulds are cool enough that you can gently slide the shells off, and leave them to cool completely. If you don’t have many moulds, this part can take a while!

And that’s all the hard work done; simply whip up your drained ricotta, and add your sugar, vanilla, and lemons bits. You can place this into a piping bag to make filling your cannoli shells easier, or you could just use a spoon if you’re feeling brave. Once filled, simply dip the ends of your cannoli into some chopped pistachios, to add a nice splash of colour, a bit of texture and flavour, and most importantly to stop the ends being all sticky and leaking out everywhere!

Make sure that you only fill as many shells as you need – they will soften after a few hours and become unappetising. Both the shells and the ricotta filling will keep well if stored correctly, and it’s very quick to prepare a few more if required.

I took some filled shells with me when I picked my daughter up from school, and asked a couple of the Italian mums for their opinion. They were not only very complementary, but also assured me that my recipe was right on the money. Hurrah!

So there you are – my ‘authentic’ Sicilian cannoli. I can’t wait to start messing with the formula! 😛