This exquisite apple and walnut pizza or pie is crisp on the outside and soft inside. The apple-walnut combination makes it like you have just had a slice of heaven.
Prepare a 20-22cm ovenproof dish. Grease and set aside.
To make the pastry we need to place all dry ingredients into a food processor and blitz till mixture becomes and looks like bread crumbs.
Add egg yolk and 1 tablespoon water. Carry on mixing, add a tiny little more water if required until the dough comes nicely together.
Tip it out into a bowl, knead a little more and cover with cling film. Wrap and allow to rest in the fridge for approximately 30 minutes or so.
While the pastry dough rests, let’s prepare the apples by peeling and coring them. Cut into chunks and place into a food processor. Pulse 3-4 times and add those to a deeper frying pan. Might need to do this in a couple of batches or even more, depending on the size of your food processor.
Chop the walnuts (leaving some halves aside to use on top at the end). Toast the nuts for literally 1 minute and set aside.
Preheat the oven at 180C or 375F. Place the minced apples on a medium fire and cook with the sugar for about 5 minutes until nice and soft. Add cinnamon, the chopped and toasted walnuts and the rum essence. Set aside. Allow to cool for a few minutes.
Take the pasty out of the fridge. Roll on a flour dusted surface creating a ½cm thickness pie base. Shape into the shape of your oven dish. Arrange on the bottom of the dish.
Place some parchment paper over the dough sheet and bake (using some baking beans) so it does not rise much.
Bake the pastry base for 8-10 min. Take out when ready, carefully remove the baking beans as well as the parchment paper. Sprinkle on the bottom of the pie the semolina (evenly) and top it up with the apple mixture. Spread this evenly.
Create some strips (if any dough is left) place on top creating a design of your choice. Mine is a silly one ;-)
Scatter the walnuts (the halves) over and bake for about 20 min at 180C/355F.
Serve with a little dusting of icing sugar and enjoy warm or cold with or without a scoop of ice cream.
Notes
I only used 170g sugar because the apples were quite sweet and I dislike the apple filling being too sweet. Add this amount of sugar and taste it. Add more sugar if you feel it isn’t sweet enough for you.
Walnuts I always buy those in a shell as I was saying earlier. Walnuts are super oily and when breaking the shell if it’s not done pretty gently the nuts will get bruised. Due to the high content of oils, the kernels will go stale and taste rancid fairly quick. I store them in their own shell and break as much as I need whenever I need them. They are sensitive little things, you know?! I therefore strongly recommend you break them as you need them for best results.