My first apple pie!

A friend of Andrew's named Michael has a lovely and kind mother. They are from China, but very modern and open people. She is one lovely and generous lady. She will invite us every now and then to their home for dinner and such. Hence, we felt that it's necessary to reciprocate such warm hospitality shown to us. So, we also invite them to our home for meals and sometimes we will introduce new places for them to eat out.

Our last visit to their home, Michael's mother gave us a big bag of Granny Smith apples, like virtually 20 of them, I think. They were really huge apples. I almost wanted to decline the offer but thought it would be rude to do so. How were we supposed to finish the apples? I tried to eat an apple a day, but it was really too much to finish, since I was the only one eating the apples without Big Elf's help!

Finally, as I was peeling all the apples to see if the apples gone bad (there were eight left), an idea struck me.... Apple pie! I'm sure there are other things I can make with apples, but apple pie struck my mind. So I googled up for an apple pie recipe and made sure that I have all the ingredients at home before proceeding. So, one in particular matched my criteria.

While Big Elf was preparing dinner, I took the opportunity to make my apple pie.. it wasn't hard to make. The preparation only took place in less than half an hour. Baking time was 45 minutes. Here's to share with you the recipe. Since, I 'stole' this recipe from somewhere I shouldn't take any credit for the pie. Here's the website to the recipe: Apple Pie Recipe

Ingredients (serves 8)
260g plain flour
75g self-raising flour
185g unsalted butter, chilled, cut into small pieces
75g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tbs milk
Demerara or caster sugar, to sprinkle

Filling
8 large Granny Smith apples
Juice of 1 lemon
45g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
(the website mentioned clove, but I don't have it)

As a result, the apple pie turned out to be superb! The pastry was really crispy and it looked so nice in it's golden brown colour. It was amazing and even Big Elf loved it. After we had the pie, he said to me that he didn't have any confidence in my apple pie initially (well, because I seldom ever succeed in anything at my first attempt), but he was proven wrong! haha =)

Oh well, enough said, this is what the pie turned out to be.