It's Make-A-Pie Tuesday

Choose to make a pie day!
Why?
This post over at Gluten-Free Girl and The Chef.
Why else?
Because I haven't baked in a while. And baby, because it's cold outside.
So this pie has a job to do...warm us up from the inside out.

Now here's the crunch (and it's not just the apple in my pie)....the thermostat on my oven is broken. Therefore, you THINK you are putting it on 180 degrees Celsius, and twenty minutes later, your yoghurt cake is cremated on the outside and raw on the inside, because the oven is ACTUALLY at, like, 250 degrees Celsius (or something like that).

A challenge, yes. Did it stop me, no. It just meant I had to play eagle eye baker and watch the damn thing like a hawk. Yay, just the way you want to spend a half hour...squatted in front of the oven.

Anyhoo, I didn't feel like following a recipe, so I made it up by feel and taste as I went along.

And here's what popped out the oven...

Home made cinnamon-apple pie

My pie crust:

• 120 grams gluten-free cake flour
• 120 grams salted butter
• 60 grams sugar
• 1 Tbsp water

Method:

I used one of those half-moon pastry cutter gadgets to make a crumbly dough that I pushed into the bottom of a buttered foil pie dish (keep some aside for a crumble topping).

I poked some holes in the bottom of the pastry with a fork and tossed the dish in the *freezer for 30 minutes while I made the filling.
* I remember hearing Jamie Oliver saying that it helps prevent shrinkage of the crust if you don't feel like tossing stinky legumes in the crust when you're blind baking it.

My apple pie filling:
(it's Winter....there's not much choice on the fruit front, and apples are about as crisp and fresh right now as they're going to be for the whole year)

• 4 large red apples
• 4 cups water
• 1 Tbsp orange juice
• 1 small Calamondin orange, cut in half
• 200ml sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Method:

• Slice the apples into crescents of 3mm thickness.
• Simmer them in the water, orange juice, sugar, cinnamon for 25 minutes, or until al dente. Allow to cool slightly.
• Take the pie crust out the freezer and bake it at 150 degrees Celsius for 10 - 15 minutes, or until golden around the edges. 

• Fill the pie crust, and sprinkle over the remaining pie crust dough as a crumble. Bake for 5 minutes at 150 degrees Celsius, or until just lightly touched by a golden hue.

•  Slice, then go forth and appease thine taste buds!