Walking into my grandmother’s house, and smelling a freshly baked apple raisin pie is one of the best memories of childhood. It made the whole house smell sweet, and that sweetness somehow completely enveloped you, making you want to eat the air itself! For a crisp, cold autumn day, here is my take on my grandmother’s warm, and cozy Apple Raisin Pie.

Short Crust Pastry:

• 400 grams or 2 1/2 cups self raising or all purpose flour
• 4 grams or 1 teaspoon salt
• 30 grams or 2 tablespoons sugar
• 150 grams or 10 tablespoons of  softened unsalted butter*
• 150 grams or 10 tablespoons of  softened vegetable shortening (Stork or Crisco)
• 6 tablespoons or 90 ml of cold water.

Mix all ingredients together just enough to form a dough. If dough in too crumbly, add a tablespoon or two more water. If dough is too wet and sticky, as this is a very short crust, add a tablespoon of flour at a time until it becomes easier to handle.
Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for 30 minutes.
While pastry is chilling make filling.

Filling:

• 6 large Bramley cooking apples or Granny Smith apples, cored, peeled and diced into thumb length pieces.
• 1 cup of raisins
• 3/4 cups of sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (Use your favourite blend, or check out my version!)

Add all ingredients together in a large bowl, mix well, and set aside.

Once pastry has chilled, cut pastry in half and roll out one half of the dough into a round shape on a liberally floured surface.
A trick to get your pastry into the pie dish: once pastry is rolled to about an 1/8th of an inch thick (or the thickness of a £1 coin) place pie dish in front of the round, place rolling pin in the middle of the round and gently flip the side closest to the pie dish over the rolling pin, lift pastry and gently drag over pie dish. Fit well into dish. If the pastry breaks, just take some extra pastry, and fill the gaps. No big deal!

Pile in the apple and raisins mixture.

Roll out second half of pastry in the same way and place on top of apple and raisin mixture. Cut off excess pastry with some scissors and seal/crimp as desired. I went around my pie with the back of a fork.

(At this point you can freeze the entire pie if you’d like and bake from frozen when desired. Or, if like us it’s just the two of you, I usually do two smaller pies instead of one big one. Then I just bake one for now and freeze the other!)

Use a pastry brush and brush the top of the pie all over with egg wash (1 egg with a splash of milk or water), sprinkle over a couple tablespoons of sugar, and make an X at the top of the pie with a knife to allow the steam to escape.
Bake at 190 degrees C (350 degrees F) for about 45 minutes or until golden brown and apples are tender (check by gently piercing apples through the X at the top of the pie with a knife.)
Let cool for 15 minutes, and serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream! Or once cooled, place in the fridge to enjoy cold as well.

*For the vegan version, simply add more vegetable shortening or other butter substitute.