Kentish apple & cheese pie

Ingredients

For the crust

• 250g shortcrust pastry

For the filling

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 800g cooking apples
• 80g sugar
• Nutmeg
• 75g Gorwydd Caerphilly
• Milk, for brushing
• Double cream, to serve

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C. Squeeze the lemon juice into a large bowl. Peel and core the apples, then slice or chop them – it doesn’t need to be dainty. Roll the apple slices around in the lemon juice as you go along, to prevent them from discolouring.

Layer half the apple slices into a 22cm-ish pie dish, then sprinkle with half the sugar and a good grating of nutmeg. I put a pie funnel into my dish at this point, it holds the pastry up and allows the steam to escape, giving better pastry every time. I also love to see a little blackbird’s head poking out of the crust.

Layer over the rest of the apples and the remaining sugar.

Slice the Gorwydd Caerphilly finely and cover the apples with a layer of cheese. Now roll out your pastry (cut a small cross in the middle if you have a pie funnel). Lift the pastry onto the pie using a rolling pin, and don’t worry about any cracks, as a few pastry leaves seem appropriate in any case and will cover a multitude of sins.

Press the pastry down onto the edge of the dish and trim away any excess. Decorate with more pastry leaves if you like and brush with milk.

Bake for 30-40 mins until golden brown. Eat while hot, otherwise the cheese will firm up. Serve with a good dollop of cream.