Toffee apple pie

It's no coincidence that the recipes I post on here are mostly cakes, pies and other desserts. I have a sweet tooth, there's no denying it.

This toffee apple pie recipe comes from Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Dinners and I have fiddled around with the recipe a bit to make it a bit more American measurement-friendly.

For the pastry

1 stick of butter (I used a baking margarine)

1 cup powdered sugar

pinch of salt

2 cups flour

zest of 1/2 lemon

2 egg yolks

2 tbsp milk

For the filling

2 x 397g tins of condensed milk

4 medium sized apples

2 tbsp powdered sugar

Put the 2 cans of condensed milk unopened into a large pan. Cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer constantly for 3 hrs. Don't let the pan boil dry ~ you will need to keep topping it up with water every now and then, otherwise the cans will explode. Apparently. After 3 hrs, remove the cans and allow to cool. This is how you make toffee (who knew?!?!!?)

To make the pastry, cream together the butter, powdered sugar and salt, then rub in the flour, lemon zest and egg yolks. I threw it all in my kitchenAid. When the mixture looks like breadcrumbs, add the cold milk. Gently work the pastry into a soft dough, roll it into a large sausage shape, cover with wrap and refrigerate for 1 hr. Remove from fridge , slice it up and line a pie mould with the slivers (Jamie recommends an 11inch pie dish ~ I used a 9 inch dish). Push the slivers together to cover the pid dish and place in the freezer for 1 hr.

Preheat the over to 350 degrees. Peel and quarter the apples and remove the cores. Slice finely and toss in the powdered sugar. Remove the pastry dish from the freezer and smear the caramel from both tins all over it. Squish the apples slices into the caramel and bake at the bottom of the oven for 40 mins. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

The pastry was truly wonderful ~ I loved the lemon in it and I am going to make pastry in this way from now on. It was soft and moist yet kept its shape and came out of the pie dish perfectly. Possibly, I'm rambling now but seriously, it was good.

The toffee apple filling was deliciously bad for you so I may come up with a new healthier filling (because I really want to make that pastry again) and for a more healthy baking recipe please see my post from last week for my orange bundt cake perfection.