Tsvetaeva apple pie

Which, as it happens, has nothing to do with Marina Tsvetaeva. She never baked it — she couldn't really cook at all; a cook ran the kitchen at home 🙃

Everything the name hangs on is a single scene in the memoirs of her sister Anastasia: someone else's dacha in Tarusa, a veranda, a samovar and apple pies cooling on the table. They were baked by the housekeeper. The sisters were simply visiting. No recipe, no description, not a single confirmation that the pie had anything to do with them.

Tellingly, you won't find this pie in any old cookbook either. The name only turns up in modern collections. So it isn't a forgotten recipe with a history, but an ordinary pie that was given a pedigree after the fact.

The pie itself, though, is wonderful: a thin shortcrust base, a mountain of tart apples and a sour cream custard that turns creamy in the oven. Once it has cooled completely, it tastes almost as if it came with ice cream.

28 cm tin

Ingredients

For the pastry

• flour — 230 g
• cold butter — 150 g
• full-fat sour cream — 130 g
• salt — 1 tsp
• sugar — 1 tbsp

For the custard

• eggs — 3
• sour cream — 200 g
• sugar — 240 g + vanilla sugar / vanillin / vanilla
• flour — 50 g

For the filling

• apples — about 7

Method

1. Rub the flour with the butter, sugar and salt into crumbs.
2. Add the sour cream and bring the dough together into a ball. You can chill it, but mine simply sat at room temperature.
3. For the custard, combine the eggs with the sugar, sour cream and flour and whisk together.
4. Peel the apples and slice them thinly.
5. Press the dough into the tin and build up the sides.
6. Lay in the apples and pour the custard over them.
7. Bake for 60–70 minutes at 180 °C. When the edges are golden and the centre still wobbles slightly, it's done.
8. Let it cool completely — ideally for several hours.