The Core Facts

Overall verdict: A sublime apple pie. The pastry is buttery with crispness. The apples are soft with a good hit of cider. Highly recommended.
Timings: 20 mins prep + 1 hour chilling + 50 mins bake
Sugar: 150g
Butter: 240g
Type of apple: Granny Smith and Pink Lady

The Long Peel

I had never come across Cat Cora before but I’m tempted to pack up my belongings and move to California to be her disciple – the Cat Cora apple pie recipe is *that* good.

Cat’s unique ingredient is cider. There’s a splash in the pastry and a bigger glug in the apple. The baking aroma is a thing of wonder and the taste is out of this world.

The Pastry

To be honest, I don’t enjoy recipes that use American measures of cups and sticks of butter etc. It’s not that I mind converting the amounts to grams. The problem is that I always think I’ve converted it wrongly, even when I’ve double-checked it. The minute a recipe starts to feel like it’s veering into unchartered territory, I start panicking that I’ve used too much of something.

Cat’s pastry is a perfect example. There’s a lot of butter, and then the water and cider make it very sticky. I could feel disaster looking over my shoulder. But I soldiered on and added some more flour, wrapped the dough in cling film and then threw it all into the fridge where the fridge angels must have worked their magic on it.

To my shock, it rolled out perfectly. It didn’t stick. It didn’t break. It rolled first time and then it went into the dish and allowed me to gently push out the air pockets.

But there was still a last minute panic. Having managed to work quickly to keep the pastry cold, I suddenly realised I didn’t know how to do a lattice. I ended up watching a YouTube video and plaiting at the same time, desperately hoping that I’d score some beginner’s luck. Thankfully, I did.

The Apples

Cat suggests 3-4 Pink Lady apples for sweetness and 3-4 Granny Smiths for tartness. I only had 7 apples and was concerned that wasn’t enough. It was actually OK – I would definitely recommend using 8 apples but it wasn’t a disaster.

The apple slices are simmered in water for 5 minutes. They then get tossed in cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and cider before being spooned onto the pie base.

The Bake

I used foil for the last 15 minutes to stop it burning but otherwise it worked out well. The aroma of cider and pastry was a) unusual and b) mouth-watering.

The Dish

I went with my trusty 23cm pie dish and it worked fine. Cat doesn’t specify what should be used.

The Hot Slice

A beautiful slice of pie by anyone’s standards:

The Rested Result

If only I could share the aroma of cidery apples. You can see the puffier pastry, courtesy of the self-raising flour, and the syrupy apple:

If We Repeeled

• Use more apple
• Maybe use a tad less cider

Scores

Simplicity of bake: Fairly simple
Pastry texture: Heavenly. Buttery and flaky with true crispness.
Pastry taste: Buttery
Apple texture: Soft with a hint of bite
Apple taste: The cider packs a punch
Apple to pastry ratio: Good – I’d prefer a bit more apple
Overall score: 9 out of 10