Russian Season

When it comes to buying fruit, I always give preference to fruit that originate from a nearer country - local farmers produce being the perfect option of course. In January, when supermarkets run out of Latvian apples, I choose Polish because they look the worst. I mean, you will never convince me that apples that keep until May are actually edible. No no no. So, while I’m always tempted to buy some of those crisp, green, glossy Granny Smiths, I opt for the slightly bruised, smaller apples from Poland.

If you take a look at these apples I brought from Slovakia, you will notice that they are imperfect. Their shape isn’t perfectly round, their colour isn’t perfectly even, their skins are bruised. These are real apples from Stano’s Grandmother. And I had to use them up urgently while they still were juicy and firm. And I had a block of margarine that also needed to be used up. So I started with these two ingredients, whipped up a flaky and a not too sweet dough, and tossed the apples with freshly scraped vanilla seeds (you can’t always use cinnamon with apples after all). Something else was missing. A layer of creamy and sweet coconut paste! Somehow I’ve never thought of pairing apples and coconut in a cake before, but surprisingly, they made a gorgeous couple! The sweet smell coming from the kitchen warmed up the chilly August evening, and the fact Stano had two (!!) pieces of the pie made me think it was pretty good. Of course he said he would have preferred it without coconut (he always chooses the right words, you know), but he ate it! So, let me introduce you my first lattice pie - you will notice that the lattice pattern isn’t perfect either, I made an error at a certain point, but this didn’t make the pie taste any worse. I love it the way it is. And the lattice - I will certainly do it the right way next time.

Apple Coconut Vanilla Lattice Pie
Ingredients

- Crust:
200g margarine, softened
1 egg
2 1/2 cup AP flour
4 tbsp whipping cream
4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp home-made vanilla sugar
Pinch of baking soda

- Apple filling:
8 medium-sized apples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup sugar or less if using a sweet variety of apples
Seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean, freshly scraped
1 tbsp starch (we use potato starch here)

- Coconut filling:
1 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened
1/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp AP flour

Rub margarine with sugar and vanilla sugar. Beat in the egg and cream. Add flour and baking soda and knead the dough until smooth. Allow to chill.

Preheat oven to 180C.

Cut the apples into fine cubes (I used a potato cutter). Toss them with vanilla seeds, sugar, and starch. Set aside.

Combine coconut, sugar, flour, and whipping cream, and stir until well-blended.

To make lattice crust, I suggest following the instructions at Simply Recipes. I divided the dough into two slightly unequal parts however, and used the bigger part for the pie shell and the smaller part for the top crust. Spread coconut filling over the pie shell and then fill the shell with apple filling. Then, top the pie with lattice crust.

Bake for 45 minutes.