Hero sent me a little message in Greek via facebook. She has a lot of apples and no food mixer so she was wondering if I have a recipe for Apple pie with only kneading by hand.

Here goes

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 2 cups of flour
• 3/4 of a cup soft butter
• 3 tablespoons sugar (preferably caster sugar)
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon cognac
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

For the filling:

• Apples
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon butter
• 1 egg white

Do it 

Mix the flour with the sugar and baking powder.

Put in the softened butter, the egg yolk and the cognac.

Knead with passion, first just rubbing between your fingers and then normally (punch it). The dough should be relatively crumbly

Just place the dough on a pastry dish (preferably a pie dish). It might be impossible to use a rolling pin so just beat it into the dish and flatten with your fingers.

Prick with a fork since you don’t want it to rise.

Place in the over for about 20 minutes (180 fan – Celsius) so that it just starts changing color. If you want to be a perfectionist cover with baking parchment and fill with red or other beans to stop it from rising.

While it’s in the oven slice the apples and sprinkle with sugar (consider brown sugar for this), cinnamon and the egg white.

Take the pie base out of the oven and just place the apples in with all their juices. concentric circles work well here. Pour any remaining juices over. Melt the butter and pour that over too.

Place in a moderate oven for about half an hour more.

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Recipe: A really old Greek cook book by Sofia Skoura, Μαγειρική Ζαχαροπλαστική του Ελληνικού Σπιτιού, Athens, 1967
Photograph: Caramel-Apple Streusel Pie Recipe Uploaded by Pillsbury.com on 20 Aug 09, 9.10PM GMT.