When my friend Lucy was diagnosed with wheat intolerance, her partner David adapted his mum’s family apple pie recipe to be gluten-free and very kindly shared his recipe with me for this book. It is always popular and whenever served, every last crumb disappears. It is best served warm with crème fraîche or Greek yogurt.
a 23-cm/9-in loose-based, deep fluted tart tin/pan, greased
baking beans
Serves 10
To make the pastry, sift the flours and icing/confectioners’ sugar into a mixing bowl. Rub the butter in with your fingertips or blitz in a food processor. Add the egg yolks and bring the dough together with your hands, adding a little water if necessary or extra flour if the dough is too soft. Wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 180˚C (350˚F) Gas 4. Coarsely grate the chilled pastry into the prepared tart tin/pan and press it out with your thumbs, until the sides and base of the tin are covered with the pastry and there are no gaps. Prick the base with a fork and put in the freezer for 30 minutes. Line with baking parchment, fill with baking beans and bake in the preheated oven for 10–15 minutes.
Thinly slice the apples and put them in a saucepan with 1–2 tablespoons cold water. Cover with a tight-fitting lid and stew until very soft. Sweeten to taste with sugar, let cool slightly and then spoon into the blind-baked pastry case.
To make the topping, put the ground almonds, brown sugar and cinnamon in a food processor and blitz. Add the butter and blitz again to a paste. Take small balls of the mixture, press them between your finger and thumb to flatten and arrange them in an overlapping tiled pattern on top of the apple layer. Bake in the preheated oven for 40–50 minutes, until the topping is brown but still soft to the touch. Let cool slightly before serving.
This pie will keep for up to 5 days if refrigerated in an airtight container.