CRAFTY CHRISTMAS: Sugar-free Apple Pie!

This Christmas I am going to be spending the day at my brother's and sister-in-law's house, along with my dad and my sister-in-law's mum. Everybody enjoys a few nice treats around this time of year, but it gets hard when someone in your family has diabetes. In this case, it's my brother. To overcome this I have decided that I am going to make a homemade sugar-free apple pie to take round to their house on Christmas day. This recipe is really lovely, and it's been adapted from this recipe here. 

*Just as a little disclaimer, I am not a chef, I just enjoy baking and cooking yummy food and drinks. I have taken the recipe I have linked above and made slight changes, but if you'd like to follow the actual recipe then click above!*

You will need:

• 400g of flour
• 200g of butter (cubed)
• 1 orange
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 2-3 tablespoons of water
• OR a ready made pie crust/ready made pastry

• 3 tablespoons of cornflour 
• 1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
• 12 fluid ounces of sugar free (or no added sugar, if you can't find sugar free) apple juice
• Around 6 apples (The recipe calls for green apples, but I used normal ones so whatever you can find!)

Step One: You need to make your pastry! This is just a normal pastry recipe with my own spin on things: you can use whatever pastry or pie crust you like! To do this add the flour and butter into a bowl and rub the mixture between your fingers until it looks like breadcrumbs. This can take a while, so be patient. A tip from my senior school cookery teacher - use your fingertips and only lightly rub the flour and butter together, otherwise you'll melt the butter too much and the mixture will become oily and heavy. Once you have breadcrumbs grate the orange peel, to add some orange zest to the mixture to add it a hint of sweetness. Also add in the teaspoon of cinnamon and stir it lightly with a wooden spoon. Then slowly add the water, one tablespoon at a time. Make sure you don't add too much or too little otherwise the pastry will crack and be too dry, or will be too sticky and unable to work with. With each tablespoon you should be trying to squeeze the breadcrumb mixture into a ball shape, once you're able to mould it into a perfect ball shape you have pastry! Pop it into the fridge until you're ready to use it. 

Preheat Oven to 175°C (350°F)

Step two: in a small bowl (unlike the one pictured) mix together the cornflour, cinnamon and a 1/3 of a cup of the apple juice. Then set this aside.

Step three: Peel and chop up apples, placing them into the pie dish you're going to use for the pie. Once the pie dish is full of apples, similar to the photo above, you have enough apples.

Step four: place the apple slices into a medium sized pan. Cover these apples in the remaining apple juice. Leave these apples to simmer until they're soft. 

Step five: Whilst the apples are simmering, roll out your pastry until it's about 3mm thick - you don't want it too thick because you have to save enough for the pie lid. Once it's rolled out, put it into the pie dish - it doesn't have to look pretty (mine looks like a 2 year old did it) it's all about the taste!

Step six: Once the apples have become soft, add in the cinnamon, cornflour and apple juice mixture to the softened apples and mix until all the apples are covered in the cinnamon mixture. This mixture will become thicker, because of the cornflour.

Step Seven: Cover your pie with the top you want, this can be completely covered*, latticed** like mine or left out completely.
*If you completely cover it use a fork and make three or four stabs in the top of it to let air escape.
** If you lattice it leave the filling to cool completely, otherwise the pastry will become soft and will break really easily when you're trying to cross them over.

Step Eight: Pop your pie in your preheated oven for around 45 minutes or until pastry has turned golden. You can lightly cover your pastry in milk to give it a nice finish. 

And there you have it:
Sugar free pie!