“The aroma of clove-studded apple pie brings back such vivid childhood memories for me, and even if the pastry was sometimes a little on the soggy side, it was still always delicious. This is a genuine old- fashioned pie, slow-cooked and with a full pastry crust. A real pie, none of that pastry lid on a pie dish stuff! Try making this with new-season organic apples, not only are they so much tastier than the ones that have been sitting in a cool store for months, they’ll be just as cheap and the weather around harvest time will be perfect for a warming apple pie.” Karen Martini 06

Serves 8

INGREDIENTS
180 g golden caster sugar
juice of 1 lemon
1 1⁄2 tablespoons cornflour
5 cloves
1.5 kg small apples, cored, peeled and sliced (900 g prepared weight)
500 g puff pastry
1 tablespoon cream (35% fat)
cream or custard, to serve

METHOD
1 Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced (200°C conventional). Grease a 24-cm springform cake tin. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
2 Combine 160 g of sugar, the lemon juice, cornflour and cloves in a large bowl. Add the apples and toss to coat.
3 Roll two-thirds of the pastry out until just under 1 cm thick. Carefully line the prepared tin with the pastry, allowing the pastry to hang over the rim of the tin. Tip in the apples and gently flatten them.
4 Roll out the remaining pastry into a circle about 1 cm thick. Brush the edge with a little cream and place on top of the apple mix with the brushed edge facing down. Press the edges together and trim so that about 2 cm of the pastry overhangs the lip. Loosely fold the overhang back into the tin and brush all the exposed pastry with
a little more cream. Sprinkle over the remaining sugar and make a few incisions in the pastry for the steam to escape.
5 Place the tin on the prepared tray and bake for 30 minutes.
6 Reduce the temperature to 150°C fan-forced (170°C conventional) and cook for a further 40 minutes until the crust is golden and the apples are bubbling beneath the pastry.
7 Cool for 25 minutes for the filling to set. Serve with cream or custard.

Recipe from New Kitchen by Karen Martini. Available now, Plum, RRP $44.99