Give me a quick and easy American pastry recipe.?

Hey there!

If you're after a classic, American Apple Pie, I have a recipe for you at http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/608149

INGREDIENTS:

For the pastry

* 460g plain flour

* 1 pinch Salt

* 460g unsalted butter

* 4 egg yolks

* 2 vanilla pods, split lengthways

* 230g icing sugar

* 1 Lemon, finely grated zest only

* Eggs, for brushing

For the filling

* 6 Cox Apples

* 100g Butter

* 100g Sugar

* 1 cinnamon stick

* 4 Cloves

* 2 twists of black pepper

* 1 vanilla pod

To serve

* Cream

* icing sugar, to dust

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/gas 5.

2. For the filling: peel and core the apples, cutting into half and then half again and put into a bowl.

3. Mix into the apples 100g of butter, 100g of sugar the spices and vanilla pod halved. Set aside for the flavours to infuse.

4. For the pastry: mix the flour and salt together. Make a well in the centre and add the soft butter, egg yolks, vanilla seeds, the icing sugar and lemon zest. Bring together into a firm dough.

5. Roll out half of the pastry, fit into the base of pie dish and then chill for 15 minutes. Once removed from the fridge fill the pie base with the apple mixture. Roll out the other half of the pastry for the lid. Place on the top of the pie and press the edges together. Brush with a beaten egg.

6. Prick a couple of holes in the top and put into the oven for 35-55mins until bubbling and golden brown.

7. Dust with icing sugar and serve with cream.

I've also found an Apple and Apricot Pie http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/515048, and an American Cherry Pie http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/603961.

Give me a shout at http://www.twitter.com/uktv if you need anything else :)

Happy baking!

Elisah

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Preparing the pumpkin Find a small "pie pumpkin" -- a mini-pumpkin about eight inches across, often sold under the name "pie pumpkin." The consistency of the meat will be more tender than in big overgrown Jack-o-Lantern style pumpkins. If you use a big monster pumpkin, you can follow these instructions, but be aware, you only need around 3 cups of prepared pumpkin meat to make two pies. Don't throw in the entire gallon of pumpkin meat into a two-pie recipe! Cut it into fourths, and scrape all the stringy guts and seeds out carefully. Try to get all the guts; if you have to scrape somewhat into the actual flesh, that's fine. Put the fourths (you can leave fragments of stalk and so forth attached – it’s not a problem) skin-side up on a baking sheet or in a baking pan, add a little water, and bake for an hour to an hour and a half at 375°. It's important to keep water in the pan, or the meat will dry out too much and you'll have a stringy pie. Keep adding water if the water keeps evaporating. When you can peel the skin right off, that's when it's time to take the pumpkin meat out of the oven. Peel the skin off, including any remaining pieces of stalk. Put the rest into a bowl, and puree it using a mixer, food processor, or whatever you have handy. A hand-held mixer works just fine. Keep beating the stuff until it's completely turned to goo, and don't wait too long after taking the meat out of the oven before starting to work pureeing the meat – it'll cause the pie to be stringy. You'll probably wind up with 2-3 cups of goo; 3 cups is ideal. Preparing the filling For two pies (assuming that you wound up with 3 or almost 3 cups of goo), you need: 3 cups of pureed pumpkin goo 1 cup white sugar ½ cup brown sugar (dark brown sugar will result in a darker pie) 1 teaspoon salt 6 teaspoons "pumpkin pie spice" (alternately, four to five teaspoons cinnamon and one to two teaspoons nutmeg) 1 teaspoon ground cloves 6 slightly beaten whole eggs, or one and a half cartons of Egg Beaters or other egg substitute 1 12-ounce can evaporated milk 6-8 tablespoons dark molasses

Apple pie, go buy a frozen pie and bake it. No one will ever know you didnt make it from scratch. You can also make cherry turnovers. Buy some puff pastry dough, cherry pie filling, cut the puff pastry into squares ( big squares) push it into muffin pans,, fill each one with pie filling and pull the corners togerther in the center, bake until the pastry is golden brown and has puffed up. Sprinkle with powder sugar before serving.

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