Recipes From a Cookaholic: Apple Tart-ish Pie

Happy Friday everyone!

It felt as if years passed this week. But friday is finally here. So did winter. Yes, that cold sweater and coat weather is knocking on the door now. I started to step on the dried orange leaves on the road and enjoying the sound, plus adding cinnamon to my milk everyday and baking a lot more. This means that winter is here.

This time of the year I bake a lot. I almost only bake because I really like the warmth of carrying a delicious smelly baked good in my hands. This also makes my friends happy because I can actually bring some stuff that I baked. When I cook, I can't bring it to school and that 's why they prefer me to bake.

My dad is a very enthusiastic apple-eater. He usually buys 4-5 kg of apple from the farmers market every week. Although we are just 3 people in the house he cannot buy less. The funny thing is he does eat them all. If I am lucky, there are some apples left and rather than leaving them to rot, I bake this recipe.

This recipe is probably having some identity issues. I am not sure if this is an apple tart or a pie; the crust is kind or like a tart but it also has kind of like a cage on top that makes it look kind of like a pie. So, call it what you want.

Anyway, I am sure that you will enjoy baking this because it is both simple and fun to make. I hope you'll like it. The problem with this recipe is I don't have the exact measurements. This is my grandmother's recipe so you might find out some expressions as "just enough to make the dough as thick as an earlobe". Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

For the dough:
1 egg
3/4 cups granulated white sugar
1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 tablespoons greek yoghurt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons butter/margarine
All purpose flour; just enough to make the dough as thick as an earlobe

Apple mixture:
2 medium apples, peeled
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

1) Grate the apples in to a pot. Add 2 tablespoons of granulated white sugar. Cook them until the apples are soft and they all absorbed the water that they released while cooking. Turn off the heat and stir in the cinnamon and walnuts. Let them cool.

2) In a large mixing bowl make the dough: add in all the ingredients for the dough and knead well. When you have a dough as soft as your earlobe cover it with a damp cloth and wait for about 10 minutes.

3) After 10 minutes remove the cloth and knead for about 1 more minute. Place it on your countertop and save the 1/3 of your dough for the cages that you are going to make on top. Put the rest of the dough on a non-stick circular baking pan. Spread the dough evenly to the bottom. Spread over the apple mixture.

4) Take the dough that you saved and roll them into a long 1 finger thick stick. Cut pieces and put a part of it on the sides of the tray and some of them on the tart both horizontally and vertically to give it a cage look (In the following photos there are also some small balls as well because I had some extra dough left.)