Apple Pie: Mrs Wagner Style

How to make a Mrs Wagner style Apple pie using homemade all butter sweet flaky pastry, and a gorgeous spicy apple filling, full instructions from start to finish.

Ingredients

Method

900g / 32oz Apples or your choice
280g / 10oz Plain or All-purpose flour
200g / 7oz Butter (very cold)
55g / 2oz Caster sugar
1 Egg Large (from fridge)
35ml / 35g Milk (very cold)
2g / ¼tsp Salt
1g / ¼tsp Nutmeg
2g / ½tsp Cinnamon
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 Egg beaten with a dash of milk (egg-wash)
Sugar for sprinkling.

Making the pastry:
Before starting the recipe, make sure everything is as cold as possible.
Add the flour to a large bowl, followed by the salt and sugar and mix it in.
Place a box grater in the bowl with the flour, and quickly begin grating in the cold butter, keep dipping the butter in the flour as you go. It helps considerably if the butter has spent approximately 15 minutes in the freezer prior to starting the recipe.
Now using light hands, gently toss the grated butter in with the flour until everything is combined.
Place the bowl in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes.
Crack the large egg into a container and add the milk and whisk until fully combined.

Once chilled add the egg n milk mixture to the flour mix, and using a dinner knife cut the mixture together as much as you can, now using your hands gently but quickly, knead it until you have the pastry formed, try not to overwork the dough.
Once your pastry is formed, divide it into 2 pieces, 300g / 11oz for the base for the pie and 250g / 9oz for the top of the pie, form them into 2 dicks, wrap them in cling film and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
Making the apple filling:
Wash, peel, core and cut the apples into small pieces and coat them in lemon juice. (see the video for the apple varieties I use in the video)
Add the ground Nutmeg and Cinnamon and mix it all together.
Assembling the pie:
For this recipe you’ll need a greased 23cm / 9in pie tin, see the video for the tin I use in this recipe.
Make up the egg-wash with the egg and milk.
Roll out the base pastry to a 28cm / 11inch circle.
Once rolled out, roll it onto you rolling pin, then unroll the pastry onto the greased pie tin leaving plenty hanging over the edge of the tin.
Carefully tuck the pastry down into the corners of the tin with your fingers.
Using a fork, prick lots of holes in the pastry base, (see the video) this is called docking the pastry.
Add the apple filling and dome it in the middle.
At this point, preheat your oven to 160°C / 320°F / Gas mark 3.
Roll out the other piece of pastry, 3mm thick once more, roll it up onto the rolling pin once more.
Brush some egg-wash all around the lip of the pastry base.
Line up and unroll the pastry lid over top of the pie base.
Gently press down the edges with the palm of your hands.
Using your forefingers and thumbs, crimp all around the edge of the pie, (see the video for this technique).
Trim off the excess pastry, and re-crimp to tidy it all up.
Cut 2 or 3 vent holes in the middle of the pie lid.
Brush the whole top surface with the egg-wash.
Sprinkle sugar over the top of the pie.
Get the pie into the preheated oven, bake for 35 to 45 minutes.
Once done, remove it from the oven, allow it rest for 10 minutes on a wire rack.
Serve it from the pie tin, slice and serve hot with either vanilla ice cream, vanilla custard or double cream.
Enjoy.