Recipe: Apple Hand Pies

A sweet recipe that celebrates an ultimate classic, extracted from Hot Fat –– our debut cookbook, the second in the Blasta Books series

Hand-held desserts, what a concept!

Earlier this year we put our debut cookbook out into the world, which delved into the delicious dark art of deep frying. Within that subject matter, people generally tend to think of deep-frying as being solely and strictly savoury. One of our major aims with the book was to dispel this, showcasing the diversity in a deep-dive into frying and demonstrating that sweet sings in hot fat tones too! Last weekend, a follower of ours made these and shared the image with us and other online, and the memory of them has lived rent-free in our minds ever since, so we’re going to make them this weekend and hope you will too.

This crunchy, crisp, hand-held pie sings with its sweet spiced filling and is super easy to put together. You might recognise it from a certain golden-arched fast food purveyor, but actually our starting point with this was not to go the apple route and instead tested with rhubarb and tart cherry, both of which were wonderful and you could do yourself (plum works wonderfully, too) but eventually the classic just made sense. So, good ‘ol green apple it was.

[Illustration above, and in the book, by the incredible artist Nicky Hooper]

Apple Hand Pies

Makes 6

• 3 medium green apples, peeled, cored and cut into small cubes

• 50g light brown sugar

• Juice of ½ lemon

• 1 tbsp cornflour

• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon

• ½ tsp ground nutmeg or mace

• ¼ tsp ground cardamom

• Fresh sunflower or vegetable oil, for deep-frying

• Icing sugar, for dusting

• 1 sheet of pre-rolled puff pastry (all-butter if possible, we really like our local pastry Roll It)

FOR THE CINNAMON SUGAR TOPPING:

• 80g granulated sugar

• 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon

1. Add the cubed apples, brown sugar, lemon juice, cornflour and spices to a saucepan with a drop of water and cook down on a medium-low heat for 20 minutes, stirring every so often to avoid it sticking or burning. You don’t want it to turn to mush – you still want a little bit of texture and structure from the apples. Set aside to cool.

2. Heat the oil in your deep-fryer or a high-sided pan to 170°C. As this is a sweet recipe, we recommend using fresh oil rather than using a fryer full of oil that has been anointed with all manner of spicy chicken, onion rings and frites.

3. Sift a bit of icing sugar over a clean work surface and roll out the sheet of puff pastry to an even thickness (about 3mm), then cut into six rectangles about 10cm x 15cm.

4. In each rectangle, dollop 3 teaspoons of the filling along the long side, off centre, as you’re going to seal it by folding over the other half. Take a small pastry brush and dab a little water around the edges of the open pastry. Fold the empty side over the filling, then crimp with the tines of a fork to seal.

5. Working with a maximum of two pies at a time (depending on the size of your fryer), carefully place the pies in the hot oil and cook for 8 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, to make the topping, mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a wide, shallow dish or pasta bowl.

7. Remove the pies from the fryer and shake the basket to allow the excess oil to drain for a few seconds, then dredge the pie(s) in the cinnamon sugar while still hot. Set on a wire rack and enjoy after a couple of minutes – resist the temptation to dive right in, as the molten middle will make itself known!

   Recipe From Blasta Books #2: Hot Fat by Russell Alford and Patrick Hanlon published by Blasta Books — order via gastrogays.square.site