Gluten Free Apple Pie



For the years before gluten free flour was on every store shelf, I used cornstarch for the base of any pastry. It made a decent tasting pastry that was almost impossible to roll out. Consequently I rarely made any pies.
Why I decided to loose a few pounds and bake an apple pie, I don't know, but I got a couple of apples and decided to give it another try with the modern gluten free flour.

I used the same base as before - 1 part fat to 2 parts flour;

For this small pie that was 2 oz butter and 4 oz Pamela's gluten free Baking and Pancake Mix. Rub together until the fat is no greater than a pea and the whole mix is crumbly. Add 1 tablespoon sugar for dessert pastry.
Moisten with 1 egg yolk and about a tablespoon of milk. This makes a rather damp and sticky mix, so rest in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
To roll  out - this was the really tricky bit until a month or two back - put plenty of flour onto a flexible plastic chopping mat and roll out to the right size. I was just using a small dish so that was about 8 inches diameter. Make sure that the pastry is not sticking to the mat by having lots of flour under it, and running a long knife under to free up any sticky bits.With the pie dish close by, put the rolling pin at the edge of the pastry. Lift the chopping mat up so that the start of the pastry falls gently onto the rolling pin. Carefully continue rolling up the pastry by lifting the mat, until all the pastry is rolled, then quickly move the pastry onto the waiting dish. This has to be done quickly because the stuff still has a tendency to crack and break. Unroll the pastry and mold into the dish.
Spread a tablespoon of sugar onto the base of the pie and fill with apples.I pre-cooked the apples, then roll out the top in the same way as the base.
Brush with a little bit of milk, then a sprinkling of sugar to give a glaze and bake in a 375 oven for about 20 minutes.

The pastry was acceptable texture-wise and apart from the dark color from the flour mix it baked and browned well.
So using the chopping mats, that can be picked up at almost any supermarket, makes it so much easier to get gluten free pastry into a pie dish, that I may will be tempted to bake some more.