Applie pie

During the first twenty-something years of my life I thought apple pie was the one which my mother, grandmother, and all the people I knew used to make. It happened just recently that I realized: apple pie is a very common expression.

In fact it's so common, that almost every nation in Europe have their own variety, that is, their own way to make this hilarious yet so simple dessert. There is the "traditional" (better to say: well known) English type, the classical German or Dutch one, then there you have the French tarte tatin, and, of course, the Hungarian one, which I was used to for so long. Most of these are very similar, except for the French one, as that's an upside-down cake. For the others we can say that the pastry is quite similar in each country, just as the proportion of the apples to the pastry. Well, all in all, most European desserts are quite alike, huh?

I have to say that although it's not a recipe suitable for spring, I couldn't resist the temptation after I saw Parvati's pie. The recipe here is almost the same, I made some slight changes (and translated it).

Hungarian apple pie
Ingredients (pastry)
500g semi-complete flour
1 bag baking powder
pinch of salt
150g unrefined cane sugar
250g butter (or palm butter, if vegan)
1-2 tablespoons of water

Ingredients (filling)
2kg sweet apples
3-4 tablespoons of any syrup (I used corn)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
optional: juice of 1 lemon, raisins

Preparation
First, mix the dry ingredients of the pastry, then add the butter (room temperature!) and the water, and start kneading. If you feel it's quite hard to knead, you're probably right. This pastry is not as easy as the bread dough, however, the result will be something very light and surprisingly delicious...
Knead for a few minutes, then set aside. Clean the apples and grate them, mix with the syrup, cinnamon and the raisins (if any). I like adding raisins in this pie, as raisins fit quite well with the apples.

Separate the dough into two equal pieces, and start stretching it out. The goal is to fit your pan, as this is going to be the bottom of the pie. Don't forget that we are making a 3-layer pie, so we need a large enough pan. Do not worry, if the dough breaks or splits; it will be just fine anyway.
Once the bottom is in the pan, put the apples as the second layer, and cover the "sandwich" with a third layer of the dough, which is almost the same in size like the first one was.

Make some holes on the top, and put in a pre-heated oven for 45-55 minutes at 180°C.
Keeps well for days, even without cover... (if you can resist eating them up at once!)