The Core Facts

Overall verdict: An excellent apple pie: melt-in-the-mouth pastry with sweet-sharp apple that retains its shape and bite
Timings: 15 mins prep + 25 mins bake (the fastest yet)
Sugar: 100g
Butter: 75g + 75g of lard
Type of apple: Bramley

The Long Peel

I decided to try the Angela Hartnett apple pie recipe as I’ve always really admired her no-nonsense approach to life and food. I did hesitate when I saw that she uses lard in her pastry. Was I being squeamish or was I being a snob? I’m not sure but I’m a working class carnivore so neither of those options is allowed in my house and I ploughed on.

The Pastry

It turns out they don’t sell lard in my local Co-op. I considered leaving it out and replacing it with more butter but I knew Angela wouldn’t approve. I persevered and I’m glad I did, as her pastry was fantastic. It rolled out well and transferred first time onto the dish with no holes or sticking to the worktop.

The Apples

Angela takes a no-nonsense approach to the apples: peel, core, slice and then toss them in demerara sugar. That’s it.

The Bake

I think 25 minutes is the shortest baking time I’ve had so far on this project. I actually left it in for 30 as it didn’t look finished. Even then, I expected the apples to be hard. But it was all perfectly done.

Angela and I are aligned on the value of sprinkling demerara sugar on top. It means you get more from your sugar intake (if that makes sense): you have an immediate hit of sweetness combined with a little bit of crunchiness followed by a non-sweet pastry followed by sharp-sweet apple. It’s the perfect structure, if you ask me. The Paul Hollywood apple pie recipe and the Neven Maguire apple tart recipe both use this method too.

The Dish

Angela says to use a plate for this pie. To me, a plate is almost flat – certainly flatter than the dish that I’ve been using for this project so far.

However, the picture that accompanies Angela’s recipe clearly shows a dish. I know that pictures do not always match the chef’s ideas, but I’m going to conclude here that Angela would have approved of my pie dish.

The Hot Slice

The slicing of the pie confirmed that I’d probably rolled the base pastry too thinly – it could have done with another millimetre or two. It held together but only just.

The Rested Result

If the apple looks under-cooked below, I can confirm that it wasn’t. It held its shape well and it had ‘soft-bite’. It was delicious:

If We Repeeled

• Possibly roll the pastry a tad thicker for the base
• Maybe use even more apple

Scores

Simplicity of bake: Very simple
Pastry texture: Beautiful – crumbly in the mouth
Pastry taste: No sugar in it so non-sweet but it worked brilliantly with the apple
Apple texture: Soft but with bite – it kept its shape
Apple taste: Really good considering it’s just apple and demerara sugar
Apple to pastry ratio: Perfectly balanced although I could have had more of both
Overall score: 9