It’s not a pie.  It’s two sheets of pastry with cooked apple in between. 

I always wanted the middle squares because it was softer and had more apple.  It was my favorite, I loved it more than anything else. Granted, we didn’t have many sweet things or pastry growing up, only occasionally. It was a big deal when that flat pan came out of the cabinet.  We had one apple tree, which bore smaller little sweet apples. They were yellow and red striped with a soft yellowish flesh. Mostly we snacked on them and threw the rotten ones at the neighbour kids.

While I loved “Almaspite” as a child, I still wanted it to be different. Better. More apples inside. Fresher, not brown and mushy apples.  I didn’t want as much crust either. Both the bottom and top were too thick. It was dry and crumbly and I had to wash it down with a cup of tea.  The crust didn’t have enough flavor either, in my opinion.

All this goes through my childish mind as I’m devouring this square of apple pastry. I have to admit the powdered sugar helped.  Ice Cream would have helped more, but ice cream was something for a different day .  I didn’t learn what “a la mode” was until we came to America. 

My explorations into making the perfect Danish pastry has blessed me with a failed dough for danish, but  quite unexpectedly, the perfect one for Almaspite.  

I’m so happy I decided to try that failure in a different way.  That “what if?” thought hit the jackpot. 

This almaspite is the one I always dreamed about and longed for as a kid.  My inner child is blissed out.

I always wanted to be an artist as a kid, and now I have finally found my medium. It’s not paint, linseed oil and thinner, it’s flour, butter and eggs. 

And the best part of this pursuit is that I can share and sell my work as soon as I create it.  How incredibly cool is that?

–Love Andie