Goats Cheese and Apple Pie

So, the Hunger Games.

 If you haven't heard of it, then you haven't been paying proper attention.

I admit I jumped on the bandwagon rather late - I actually decided to read it, in spite of my mother and one of my friends telling me for months to, after the movie trailer was released. As I love Josh Hutcherson, I decided to read it. And I am so glad I did. It is honestly one of the best books I have ever read. Admittedly, I have an obsessive personality, and this may be why I develop an obsession with most books I read, but if you haven't read it, you should.

I like Finnick, Joanna and Peeta. They all appeal to me - Finnick's undying loyalty and bravery, Joanna's strong-minded-ness and determination and Peeta's positivity and kindness. These are the characters kids should look up to - like Harry, Ron and Hermione. If I ever write something that gets published, my goal is to have characters that children should admire as well as hate.

I also got lucky enough to see the movie at Australia's midnight premiere. Which was awesome. When we got there they gave us each a District to represent, with little tags with the districts symbol on. They also had red berry lollies in a cup labelled 'nightlock'. They had an archery competition, a mini Hunger Games based on trivia from the books, and they took like a million pictures of everyone.

Now this pie comes straight from the book. It reminds me of Peeta - sweet and uncomplicated. The recipe is uncomplicated and the pie is amazing. If you don't like goats cheese, just try it. It may change your mind. I prefer to eat this cold, absolutely covered in honey and with cold yoghurt. It is still lovely warm, just very cheesy. So take note of this - if you don't like the cheesy taste, lessen the amount of cheese or maybe drizzle honey of the top of the pie before baking. Or you could serve it warm covered in honey. And with yoghurt. Even when it is cold, and it is not as cheesy, I still love it with honey. I have a slight obsession.

The recipe is very long, but that is because I went into an insane amount of detail in the recipe because this pie is so easy, and in all honesty, one of the best things I have made this year.

Level of Difficulty: Easy

Average Cost: $$

Main Ingredients: goats cheese, apple

Inspired by: Scarletta Bakes and Sugar Laws (I mixed both recipes together to create this one)

Occasion: Breakfast, Snack, Dessert

Menu Options: This is lovely hot, but even better cold. I would serve it hot or cold completely covered with honey (maybe even honey warmed over the stove) and with low fat greek yoghurt. I found I would was eating it cold covered in the sweetest honey I have (tea tree) and dipping it in greek yoghurt (my greek yoghurt is a lot sweeter than most, so maybe a vanilla/honey flavoured yoghurt would be nice too).

Serves 2. I would say 2 could easily eat this pie for dessert, but if you want to serve 4 simply double the recipe and I would create two small pies, much cuter, as opposed to one big one. Hell, even 4 people could eat this happily - I ate it over 4 days, about a quarter at a time, but my portions weren't massive. The nutritional analysis is based on serving 4.

What you will need:

For the crust:
3/4 cup self raising/all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
Between 1/4-1/2 cup butter, cubed (I would say use a 1/2 cup measuring cup, and fill it three quarters of the way)
3 tbsp white sugar
1.5 tbsp cold water

Of course, you could use shortcrust or puff pastry if you want, but the dough is absolutely beautiful. It does require refrigeration, and I simply left mine overnight as I ran out of time the day I made the dough. It really made the dough very easy to work with, so I would suggest leaving it overnight.

For the filling:

2 apples – your choice of apple. I used red delicious purely because that was what I had and they are my favourite type, but I think most types would work.

1 tsp cinnamon

3 tsp lemon juice

3 tsp honey

1/3 cup goats cheese – preferably the spreadable type, but if yours is a little chunky like mine was, it doesn’t matter.

What to do:

To make the crust:

In a large bowl combine the flour, salt and white sugar. Stir thoroughly.

Using a mixer (I used a handheld one and found it was easy to make the dough, but I’m sure a stand mixer would be easier) add the butter slowly to the bowl, mixing until the mixture is breadcrumb-like. It should be fine and course. Think thick breadcrumbs.

Add the water and mix further until a dough forms. It will be thick and sticky. Add a little more water if you feel you need to, but not too much.

On a floured surface, knead the dough. You only want to knead until the dough just comes together. Feel free to add flour to your dough to help it do this.

Form the dough into a ball; it should be thick and smooth looking, and not too floury. Wrap the dough in plastic and place in the refrigerator. Like I said, I left my dough overnight, but as long as the dough is properly cold and holds together well – between one and two hours.

When the dough is ready, place it on a sheet of baking paper and roll the dough out until relatively flat. The dough will thicken in the oven, so it can be very thin. As this pie is freeform and messy, make an oval-ish shape with the dough but it does in no way need to be perfect.

 Preheat your oven to 230 degrees Celsius and move the parchment paper to a baking tray.

For the filling:

Peel, core and cut the apples. You can cut the apples however you please. As I couldn’t be bothered to make mine look perfect, I simply cut mine into small cubes, which looked and tasted fantastic.

In a bowl, combine lemon juice and cinnamon. As you are cutting the apples put them into the lemon juice to stop them from browning.

Once all of the apples have been cut and coated in the lemon juice mixture, add the honey to the mixture and make sure all apples are coated with the cinnamon, lemon juice and honey.

Spread the goats cheese over the dough. Try to keep the cheese in the fridge immediately prior to doing this. If the cheese is hard, simply crumble it, but try to spread it. My cheese was kind of spreadable, but it did get stuck into the dough and didn’t so much as spread as break the dough. I ended up using my fingers to spread it rather thickly. It doesn’t matter how you do it, just try to not break the dough and if you do, don’t fret, just patch it up – the dough is strong.

Do not spread the cheese all the way to the edge as you have to fold the dough over itself. Therefore, leave a border of about 5 centimetres.

Add the apples to the pie, drizzling any leftover juice over the apples.

Fold the sides of the dough over the fruit filling, and again don’t worry if the dough tears, just patch it up. Once the filling is safely folded inside the dough, bake for 10 – 20 minutes. I say this because it really does depend on how baked you want your fruit to be. I baked mine for approximately 15 minutes, maybe a little less, because my crust was very brown and the apples slightly crispy.

Serve warm or cold, but you know my preference is cold.