I made these for the Politarchopolis winter feast. They are basically
“Tartes of Apples with covers.” (A Book of Cookrye, 1591), with a couple of minor tweaks by cook’s preference.

The recipe says:

Mince your Apples very small, season them with Sugar, sinamon & ginger, and laye thereon a faire cover, and dresse your cover when it is halfe baked with Rosewater and Sugar.

I did them in 12/tray muffin tins. I used Borg’s pastry; I would have preferred to use my own butter pastry, but Borgs makes it accessible to vegetarians and vegans. I put a teaspoon of ground almonds in the bottom of each to absorb the juices — otherwise I would have had to fully drain the mixture and lose a lot of appley goodness and spices.

The recipe below makes 12 pies, so you will likely need multiples.

I used 500g of Granny Smith apples as cheap, readily available, and with a sharp apple taste. I peeled and cut them very fine. I put half a cup of white wine in the bottom of the saucepan as I put the chopped apple in: that’s in the “without covers” version of the recipe and I used it as an acidulator (stops the apple browning), as some initial moisture for cooking, and because I thought it would add to the flavour.

I boiled the apple till I thought it was ready; it creates a lot of its own juices. I added a cup of sugar, a teaspoon of ginger, a teaspoon of cinnamon and (not in the recipe) the tip of a teaspoon of ground cloves, because I like it.

At the end, I drained off all the liquid and put it back in the saucepan to reduce by about two-thirds. Then I added it back.

I poured the mix into the pastry bases, then added the lids. For this one, I did little decorative crosses botany in pastry. I put them in the oven at 180 deg C.

Halfway through the cooking, I painted them with a rosewater and icing sugar mix. (I experimented with casting regular sugar and casting sugar over the top of this mix, but didn’t like the results.)

At the first sign of browning, you need to pull the tray out and rest it while you put another tray in. Then put it back later for some more browning. If you don’t, you can get a lot of juice boiling over, which is unsightly.

They were very popular.