The Core Facts

Overall verdict: A buttery, lovely pie filled with syrupy apples and a good hint of cloves.
Timings: 20 mins to prep + at least 1 hour to chill pastry + 50 minutes in oven
Sugar: 180g
Butter: 240g
Type of apple: Granny Smith

The Long Peel

I found this recipe for Darina Allen’s Apple Pie on the Kerrygold US website. It was the only apple tart/pie recipe I could find online from the famous Ballymaloe cooking school/hotel so I’m hoping it’s still an Irish recipe that hasn’t been tailored too much to the US market (apart from the whole cups rather than grams thing).

The Pastry

I had to redo this one, as my first attempt looked absolutely awful – and if you’re thinking ‘this reattempt doesn’t look great either’ then you can imagine how bad the first one was.

My first-round error was a lesson worth learning: I re-rolled my top lid pastry three times, which meant it ended up overworked. As soon as it hit the oven, it shrank and pulled away from the sides of the dish.

I still messed up the rolling for the second round but I patched up the pastry rather than rerolling it. It looked bad going into the oven (below) but the patching wasn’t as noticeable coming out so I’d done the right thing this time.

The Apples

Darina suggests Granny Smith apples for this recipe – I did wonder if that’s because they don’t have Bramleys in the US. In terms of taste, it didn’t matter: Granny Smiths are good and tart. But they are a bit small. Darina’s instructions say use 4 or 5 apples. I used 5 but I could probably have added one or two more.

This was the first recipe that asked for ground cloves. I was a bit heavy-handed in my first attempt – Darina asks for 1/8 teaspoon and I probably overdid it. For the second attempt, I was very careful to add only 1/8 and the whole thing tasted much nicer.

The Bake

Darina stipulates 45-60 minutes so I went for 50, which seemed to work fine. An extra ten mins might have melted the apple a little more, so I’d try that next time.

I did wonder if the amount of butter used by Darina in this one contributed to the shrinking, as both attempts of this pie shrank more than the other recipes (for example the Neven Maguire apple tart recipe).

The Dish

Darina suggests a 24cm dish and mine was 23cm so we were pretty much aligned.

The Hot Slice

I regretted cutting this one while it was hot, as it contained a lot of juice, which escaped into the dish. But the slice looked and tasted great.

The Rested Result

You can really see the syrup of the apples, sugar and cloves in this:

If We Repeeled

• Use more apple
• Slacken the pastry slightly to allow more give for when it shrinks
• Maybe bake for 60 mins to give the apples longer to soften
• Remain vigilant with the ground cloves – too much is not a good thing

Scores

Simplicity of bake: Reasonably simple
Pastry texture: Soft and buttery
Pastry taste: Sweet and buttery
Apple texture: Apples retained a slight bite in a lovely syrup
Apple taste: Tart apples with cloves and sugar worked perfectly
Apple to pastry ratio: Good – although I would recommend a bit more apple
Overall score: 9 out of 10