Ingredient

Apple pie

Apple pie has two structural problems and both are about water. The apples release a great deal of it as they cook, which leaves a gap between the shrunken filling and the pastry lid and a wet base underneath. Everything worth knowing about making one is a response to those two facts.

The apples, and why to mix them

Bramley

The British cooking apple. Very tart, very high in water, and it collapses completely into a fluffy purée. Excellent flavour, no texture.

Eating apples that hold

Braeburn, Granny Smith, Cox, Russet, Honeycrisp. They keep their shape and give the pie some structure, and they are sweeter and less interesting alone.

The answer is a mixture

Roughly half collapsing and half holding. The Bramleys break down into a sauce that binds the pie; the others stay in pieces. This is the single best decision you can make about an apple pie.

Windfalls and old apples

Perfectly good, and often better — a slightly wrinkled apple has lost water and has more concentrated flavour.

Sweetness

Judge it against the apples you have. Bramleys need considerably more sugar than a Braeburn, and a pie made to a fixed sugar quantity will be wrong half the time.

The gap, and the wet base

As apples cook they lose water and collapse, sometimes by a third of their volume. The pastry lid, already set, stays where it is — so you cut into the pie and find a dome of empty space over a shrunken filling, with a pool of liquid at the bottom.

Several things help, and using two or three together largely solves it.

Pre-cook the apples. Cook them down briefly first, let them cool, and the shrinking has already happened before the lid goes on. The most effective single fix.

Or macerate them. Toss the sliced apples with the sugar and leave them for half an hour, then drain off the liquid that comes out — and reduce that liquid to a syrup and put it back. You lose the water and keep the flavour.

Pile the filling high and domed, so there is something for the lid to rest on as it settles.

Thicken it. Cornflour, flour or ground almonds tossed through the apples binds the juice that does come out. Ground almonds or semolina sprinkled on the base absorb it before it reaches the pastry.

Bake it hot, low in the oven, on a preheated metal tray. Direct conducted heat under the base is what sets it before it can go soggy.

The method

1. Make shortcrust pastry and chill it properly. Rest it after mixing and again after lining the tin — pastry that has not rested shrinks.
2. Line the tin and chill it, then blind bake the base if you want certainty about the bottom. Egg-wash the hot blind-baked base to seal it.
3. Peel, core and slice the apples — a mixture — and toss with sugar, a squeeze of lemon, cinnamon or cloves, and a spoonful of cornflour.
4. Either pre-cook them briefly and cool them, or macerate and drain them, reducing the liquid back into the fruit.
5. Scatter ground almonds, semolina or fine breadcrumbs over the base to absorb any juice.
6. Pile the filling in, domed in the centre and pressed down at the edges.
7. Wet the rim, lay the lid on, press to seal and crimp, and trim.
8. Cut two or three vents in the lid so steam escapes. Without them it pushes down into the filling and up under the pastry.
9. Brush with milk or egg and sprinkle with sugar for a crisp top.
10. Bake hot, on a preheated tray on a low shelf, until deep golden and bubbling at the vents.
11. Let it settle for at least twenty minutes before cutting. A pie cut straight from the oven floods.

What goes wrong

• Gap under the lid. The apples shrank after the lid set. Pre-cook or macerate them, and dome the filling.
• Soggy base. No blind bake, no absorbent layer, no direct heat underneath. All three help.
• Watery filling. No thickener, and the apples' liquid was not dealt with.
• Shrunken, tough pastry. Over-worked, or not rested. Handle it as little as possible and chill it between every stage.
• Pastry too pale underneath. Baked too high in the oven. Low shelf, preheated tray.
• Bland. Under-sugared for the apples used, or no acid. Lemon juice lifts the fruit considerably.

Common questions