Recipe: My Nan's Vegan Apple Pie

If you're of a ( ahem...) 'certain' age - like me, the chances are, when you were a child you did some cooking with your grandma ('Nan' in my case).

My nan was a feisty character, to say the least, but in the kitchen she was a warm, homely cook who showed endless patience as she taught me all of the basic cooking skills that her mother and grandmother had taught her.

These handed down life skills are invaluable and I feel so grateful to have had that kind of grounding. They meant that when I left home at 19 I had the confidence to avoid processed microwave foods, was able to wow new boyfriends with my domestic goddess prowess and I could hold some (quite) sophisticated dinner parties!

Of course food was different then. Times were simpler and you had 6 herbs and spices in your cupboard and recipes rarely called for anything more exotic than curry powder; oh, and you didn't need a degree in 'blumenthalogy'. Ah yes - there was A LOT to be said for it and actually I miss those days (sometimes).

These were meat-eating times though and many of nans recipes I can now no longer use - stuffed lambs hearts were a favourite, as money was tight - doubtless these are a Michelin delicacy now.. :(

First 3kg of apples from our tree & my little helper!

But I'm waffling - lets cut to the scrumpy... because Bramleys are dropping as I type :)

Here is Nan's recipe for apple pie. It's as simple as it is delicious and guess what? It uses Stork margarine - which, it turns out, is vegan.

Thanks nan - you were my cooking inspiration and I wish I could make this for you now.

Love you

Chantal xx

[Makes 4-8 portions - depending on how greedy you are! (I'd go with 4.)] 

You can make 8 small pies, 4 large individual pies or 1 family-size pie - the choice is yours!

Gather

Pastry

290g plain flour - (ideally organic) [+ extra to dust the work top]

160g Stork - from the fridge cut into cubes (block margarine only, as the tub version contains whey)

10g icing sugar - (I use Silver Spoon because it's grown in the UK from sugar beet and doesn't use animal ash in it's processing - so is vegan.)

Pinch of salt

100ml (approx) ice cold water

Filling

2 large bramley apples

white caster sugar - to taste

ground cinnamon - to taste

Glaze

20g stork - melted

2 tbsp granulated sugar

Create

NB It's said that to make good pastry you need cold hands. Given that I have warm little paws - I make my pastry in a food processor. Nan wouldn't have approved, but providing you don't blend it for an hour you can still get a great result I think.

1.  Add the flour, icing sugar and salt to a food processor. Switch on to blend and add the cubes of Stork through the top aperture. Blend until resembling fine breadcrumbs and then very gradually drizzle in the ice cold water until the dough clumps together and forms one large ball. Stop blending immediately.

2.  Remove the pastry dough, wrap in cling film and place in the fridge to chill for half an hour.

3.  Meanwhile get your pie dishe/s prepared. [I use a yorkshire pudding tin that makes 4 large individual pies.] by buttering them with a little Stork from the discarded Stork wrapper (as Nan used to do).

4.  Heat your oven to 200C  /  180C fan  /  GM 6  /  aga moderate/hot.

5.  After your pastry has rested for half an hour, lightly flour your work surface and roll it out to approx 3mm thick. Then cut it to fit the bottom of your pie tin/s and gently place in, making sure it's pushed down all the way around.

6.  Reform the pastry and re-roll (if necessary) and cut out shape/s ready to fit the top of your pie/s (err on cutting too large as you can always trim the excess).

7.  Then core, peel and slice your apples and quickly arrange the pieces on top of the pastry base.

8.  Bramleys are sharp, so sprinkle over some caster sugar and then dust liberally with ground cinnamon (I leave the quantities up to you, as every palate is different - I like a fairly sharp apple taste but with lots of cinnamon.)

my pastry could have been thinner here but I love pastry!

9.  Wet the rim of your pastry case with water and then place the pastry lid on top, pressing down all of the edges firmly to seal and trimming off any excess pastry to make it neat. 

10.  Brush the top of the pie with the melted Stork, sprinkle with the the granulated sugar and make 3 little slits in the top with a sharp knife. (NB if you have any pastry scraps left over you can cut these into leaf shapes etc to decorate the top of the pie - 'glue' them on with a little water.)

11.  Place your pie/s in the middle of the preheated oven and bake until pale golden brown - usually about 20-25 minutes (small pies) 30-40 minutes (medium pies) 35-45 minutes (large pies). Better still, unless cooking with an aga (where you cannot smell baking) check on your pie/s when that delicious apple pie smell starts to waft through the house.

Enjoy!

Leave your pie to cool slightly before you serve it. Then serve with lashings of warm custard (soya, naturally, NOT made with full fat milk and Birds custard powder - sorry Nan!)