Aussie Cooking

[sashafurf]

Hi All!!

I am new here an relatively new to cooking things other than tofu and soups. I have never tried my hand at baking, but last night I appeased my desire to cook an apple pie. It looked great. 10/10 for presentation however, it didn't taste too great. It wasn't awful, it was just a let down.

The recipe I followed was this one:

Ingredients (serves 6)
• pastry
• 300g (2 cups) plain flour
• 45g (2 1/2 tablespoons) caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 180g cooking margarine or butter, chilled and cubed
• 1 large egg
• Iced water
• filling
• 1.25kg (about 5 large) Granny Smith apples
• 20mls (1 tablespoon) lemon juice
• 55g (1/4 cup) sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons apricot jam
• 20g (1 tablespoon) butter, cubed
• extras
• 1 egg white, lightly beaten, to glaze
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Thick or thin cream, or vanilla or cinnamon ice-cream, to serve
Method
1. Preheat oven to 190°C.
2. Butter a glass or ceramic 23cm pie dish. To make the pastry, combine flour, caster sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Using your fingertips, rub in margarine or Cooking: 50-60 mins. butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Make a well in the centre, add egg and enough iced water - 10mls (2 teaspoons) - to mix to a soft dough. Bring together with fingertips and shape into a disc. Cover the dough completely in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Peel, core and cut apples into quarters. Cut each quarter into 3 wedges. Then toss the apple with lemon juice to prevent it from browning. Just before rolling out pastry, toss apples with the sugar and cinnamon.
4. Roll out two-thirds of the pastry to a round about 28cm in diameter and line the buttered pie dish. Trim the edges and spread pastry with apricot jam. Arrange the apple slices in pastry case, dot with butter and then brush pastry edges with beaten egg white. Roll out the remaining pastry into a round large enough to cover the pie. Place over apples and press pastry edges together to seal. Trim pastry and decorate as desired.
5. Cut vents in top of pie, brush with egg white and sprinkle with 20g (1 tablespoon) of sugar. Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven. Reduce oven temperature to 180°C. Bake for a further 30 to 40 minutes or until golden. Serve warm with cream or ice-cream.
Notes & tips

Now, I followed above recipe to the letter. The main problem was the pastry.

- pastry was very bready and savory. I was hoping it would be sweat and the texture of the pastry more akin to..um...pastry rather than bread.

So how can I manage a good pastry? Any ideas on how to improve this recipe?

[Hamilton]

Here is an example of shortcrust pastry for apple pie;

2 1/3 cups plain flour
125 grams butter (or margarine) cut into small pieces
1/3 to 1/2 cup cold water
pinch salt
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 egg yolk

Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Add butter and rub into flour with your fingertips until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add sugar and egg yolk, then stir in enough cold water to mix to a soft dough. Turn dough out onto a lightly surface and knead lightly until the dough is smooth. Wrap in greaseproof papaer or plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Welcome to group and hope this works!!!!!. It's very frustrating when a recipe doesn't turn out.

Jacque

[PurplePoodle]

Perhaps you overworked the pastry, this would make the pastry tough and not perform properly.
It takes a bit of practice to make a perfect pastry, good luch.