Apple Pie

I've been working on a satisfactory apple pie recipe for years, and never came up with anything ... well, better than a "replacement pie".  This Christmas, I tried a new crust and a new filling, and it was pretty good!  And then when my sister texted me asking if I had blogged the recipe, I guess I finally have a blog-worthy apple pie!

The key to a good apple pie is the crust.  Also the filling.  The two keys to a good apple pie are the crust and the filling.  Also the apples themselves.  I'll come in again. 

Amongst the keys to a good apple pie are the crust, the filling, and the apples.  But let's start with the crust.  For years I had been using an all-butter variation of the Cook's Illustrated "Foolproof and Flaky Pie Dough" by J. Kenji Alt (published over a decade ago in November 2007!). And it worked okay.  Adding the vodka was a neat trick that helped keep it moist and rollable without too much gluten.  But it never quite lived up to the hype.  I always thought it was because I had substituted all butter for the butter/shortening mixture (I refuse to use shortening!), and it was something I'd have to live with.  Then, in the January 2018 issue of Cook's Illustrated is an update a decade later: "Foolproof All-Butter Pie Dough".  In a recap of the old recipe the new one says "you continue processing until the fat and dry ingredients form a smooth paste".  What's that?  I had never done this.  And looking back at the final text of the old recipe it says to process until the dough "just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds".  That's not a paste! But ... in the sidebar, it says "1. Make a fat and flour paste".  So the old recipe text, which I had followed for a decade, was WRONG!  😬😬😬 And I'm pretty sure this was my problem all along.

Anyway, for the filling I had always followed the straightforward but somewhat boring Joy of Cooking filling.  Or one of the pre-cooked Cooks Illustrated fillings.  They never quite worked. This time?  I opened up Baking Illustrated.  I appreciate that it goes by weight for the apples.  It says to use a mix of Granny Smith and Macintosh, but I just used the apples that the kids chose from the farmers' market stand and it worked out great.

All-Butter Crust for Double-Crust Pie

Makes 2 9-inch pie crusts (1 double)

Ingredients:
20 Tbs unsalted butter (chilled)
2.5 cups (12.5 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup ice water

Equipment:
Food processor
Rolling pin
2 2+ gallon "jumbo" ziploc-style bags
2 pie tins
1 cookie sheet

Grate 4 Tbs butter on large holes of box grater and put in freezer.  Chop remaining butter into small pieces, put in a small bowl, and put into freezer to chill for a few minutes.  Mix together 1.5 cup flour (only), sugar, and salt in food processor until combined, reserving 1 cup flour.  Add butter cubes and process until paste forms, up to a minute.  Carefully break paste into chunks with hands.  Add remaining flour and pulse 4-5 times until broken up.  Transfer to bowl and toss with grated butter.  Sprinkle 0.25 cup ice water over mixture.  Toss until moist.  Add remaining ice water and mix with spatula until dough sticks together.  

Split dough into two halves, shape into 5" disks and place one in each jumbo bag.  Seal the bags (removing as much air as possible) and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, up to 2 days.  Place two pie tins and cookie sheet in freezer. Remove dough from freezer and put on a large table. Roll out the dough inside the bag. This helps keep everything together. You'll have to unstick the dough from inside the bag every several rolls. When the dough is rolled out (enough for a tin plus 1" + margin), remove pie tins and cookie sheet from freezer. Put the bag with dough on the frozen cookie sheet. This ensures that the crust stays nice and cold. Cut off the top half of the bag. Put one of the pie tins right side up on the dough. Flip dough and pie tin over, so that you have the dough draped over the back of the tin. Peel off the rest of the plastic bag, and put the second pie tin on the first and press dough into place. Flip over and remove outer pie tin. Tamp down bottom circle of crust. Trim overhang to within 1/2 inch, fold under edge and make a nice fluted edge (this part I'm not very good at).  Refrigerate dough-lined plate while you prepare the pie filling.

Apple Pie

Ingredients:
2 Tbs all-purpose flour
3.5 pounds apples
1 Tbs juice and 1 tsp zest from one lemon
0.75 cup (5.25 ounces) sugar + 1 Tbs
0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
0.25 tsp ground cinnamon
0.125 tsp ground allspice
0.25 tsp salt
1 egg white, beaten lightly

Put one oven rack on lowest level, place a baking sheet on it, and heat oven to 500 F.  Peel, core, and slice apples into 0.25 inch slices and toss with lemon juice and zest.  In a medium bowl, mix 0.75 cup sugar, flour, spices, and salt.  Toss dry ingredients with the apples.  Put apple mixture (with the liquid!) into the chilled pie shell.

Roll out the second crust as above.  Place over the filling.  Trim and tuck the edges under the bottom pie crust.  Cut 4 big and 4 small slits in a nice pattern on top.  Brush with the egg white on top crust and sprinkle remaining 1 Tbs sugar.  This makes it look extra delicious!

Place pie on baking sheet and lower temperature to 425 F.  Bake until top is golden, 25 minutes.  Rotate pie and lower temperature to 375 F.  Bake until juices bubble and crust is done, 30-35 minutes longer.  Transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature.