This week we are all kinds of excited to welcome back Rachael McMahon to the Hello May creative community! Rachael hails from New Zealand, is a massive foodie and all round lovely lady. She has been guest blogging here at Hello May once a month for, well, as long as she can put up with us!
Some of you may know Rach as the brains behind Made From Scratch, a lifestyle blog that covers everything from home decor, style and of course delicious recipes! Once a month she will swing by to share an exclusive recipe of the don’t-mind-if-I-do-have-a-second-helping nature, so at the end of it all you’ll have quite a delicious collection of recipe’s to put together a rather impressive country fair style dessert bar at your wedding or reception.
Take it away Rach…
Even though we are well and truly in the depths of winter, nothing is more wonderful or heartwarming than a homemade lattice pie – even if the filling is full of fresh summer strawberries! I actually picked these strawberries during summer, hulled and halved them and put them into the freezer for safe keeping, so safe that I completely forgot about them and stumbled upon them during a bit of a clean out.
They go perfectly with delicious crisp green apples and lashings of vanilla, it’s not only the perfect winter pie but it will also be incredible for when summer arrives for any celebrations you have planned.
STRAWBERRY, APPLE + VANILLA LATTICE PIE
Sweet Pastry
1 egg
1/3 cup powdered (icing) sugar 2 teaspoons ground almonds Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup (57g) butter, softened
1 cup plain flour, sifted
1. In a large bowl break the egg and beat it with a fork. Add the sugar, ground almonds, ground cinnamon and the salt to the beaten egg. Beat with a wooden spoon/spatula until the mixture turns pale yellow and frothy. Cut the butter into very small pieces and set aside.
2. Pour all of the sifted flour into the egg mixture and mix quickly with the spatula. Then rub the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles wet sand only just sticking together.
3. Place the mixture onto a well-floured bench, dot with the chopped butter and knead with your hands to combine the butter. Form the dough into a ball, wrap with cling wrap and allow to chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge.
4. Preheat oven to 160 C, butter and flour a 20cm pie dish. On a well floured bench roll out 3/4 (keep the rest for the lattice top) of your prepared dough to around 1/2 cm thick, then carefully place into the prepared dish. Pierce the pasty with a food and line with crumbled baking paper and pour in either rice or pie weights blind bake the pastry for around 15 min, or until the edges are starting to golden. Allow to cool completely before removing the baking paper otherwise you’ll tear the pastry.
Strawberry, Apple and Vanilla Filling
1 kg strawberries, hulled and halved – either fresh or frozen
2 green apples, peeled and diced
1 vanilla bean, split and de seeded
4 tablespoons of vanilla essence
dash of water
2 heaped tablespoons of icing sugar
1 tablespoon corn flour
1. Place all of the ingredients into a large pot and simmer everything together on a medium to low heat until the apples are cooked – test them with a fork and if they slide off the prong they’re done. It should take around 10 or so minutes.
2. Once cooked place a colander over another bowl and strain off the juices from the fruit so that the pie doesn’t go soggy when cooked – be sure to keep the syrup, you can put it on vanilla ice cream!
3. Preheat oven to 160 C. Once the fruit is strained, spoon into the cooked pastry. With the left over pastry, roll out to around 1/2 cm thick and slice into long strips – then lay half of the pastry strips in one direction before overlapping with the remaining strips, you want to create a lattice effect by overlapping the pasty.
4. Once done, place your pie into the oven and bake for around 20min or until the top is golden brown. Allow to cool before dusting with icing sugar and serving with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream! Enjoy.
Click here to check out last months sweet as Pumpkin Pie.
CREDITS Recipe and photos Made From Scratch.
