I baked these when I was in Poland, for my mum’s birthday.
She requested my little apple pies and I thought I’d make them a little differently by adding some custard and raspberries and trying out a new pastry recipe.
It was winter in Poland, so raspberries weren’t available fresh, but my uncle makes his own preserves at the end of every summer so I used a jar of his raspberry preserves. Basically they are just raspberries in a runny sugar syrup.
Also, I’m a little lazy, so the custard was from a packet. Sorry!
Anyway, the pies baked up deliciously and Mum was so happy.
The soft vanilla apples, the raspberries, and the smooth custard married together beautifully inside the little pies. The pastry was really nice and buttery too, and the grated pastry on the top added a little crunch.
I love the way putting custard into my pies worked out – I’m going to start putting it into all of them!
LITTLE APPLE, RASPBERRY AND CUSTARD PIES
For the pastry
1 2/3 cups plain flour
2/3 cup icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1/2 tsp salt
125g cold unsalted butter, cubed
2 egg yolks
For the filling
3 apples
2 tsp vanilla sugar
1 tsp cornflour
250ml jar of raspberry preserves, or fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tsp cornflour
1 cup custard
To make the pastry, combine the flour, icing sugar, vanilla sugar and salt in a large bowl. Using your fingertips, crumble in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
Add the egg yolks and bring the mixture together, kneading lightly, to form a dough. If it is still a little dry you can add 1-2 teaspoons of cold water.
Take a third of the dough, and form it into a thick log. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Form the remaining two-thirds of the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
To make the apple filling, peel, core and cube the apples. Place them, with the vanilla sugar, in a small saucepan over a low heat. Cover the saucepan and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. The apples should be soft but still hold their shape.
Drain the liquid from the apples into a small bowl, and mix the cornflour into the liquid until it is smooth and there are no lumps. Stir the cornflour mixture back into the apples and set aside.
If you are using raspberry preserves, drain them well. If you are using frozen raspberries, defrost them first and drain them well. Mix 1 teaspoon of cornflour into either the preserves or frozen raspberries. Fresh raspberries will be fine by themselves.
When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180 C and grease a 12-hole muffin tin.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the large disc of dough until it is about 3mm (1/8 inch) thick. Use a large upside-down glass or cookie cutter (about 10cm in diameter) to cut out 12 large circles.
Line the muffin pans with the circles of dough. Fill the pastry cases with 1-2 tablespoons of apple filling, then 1 tbsp of custard, a few raspberries and a little more custard over the top.
Remove the log of pastry from the fridge and grate the dough onto a sheet of baking paper. Sprinkle the grated dough over the little pies.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown. Makes 12 little pies.
