Saturday, April 11, 2009

Apple Pie

I baked this to bring over for Easter dinner for my parents. It's got a basic double-crust, plus the requisite spiced-up apple filling. I use lots of cinnamon, a dash of nutmeg, and a dash of allspice. This time around, I used Golden Delicious apples, but I normally use Granny Smiths.

Does anyone not know how to bake an apple pie? I can try to give my recipe for it, but about the only things I actually measure are the fat and flour ratio for the crust (1:3). Other than that, I just eyeball the ingredients, and go by smell/taste. I got sloppy when pinching together the crust around the rim, by using my knuckles and a pinky finger, but this was home cooking, for my family, and nobody who's going to eat this will ever care what it looks like, as long as it tastes good.

Regardless, it smelled phenomenal while it was cooling, and will slice up just fine tomorrow . . . heated at 250F while we eat dinner, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream melting over it, for dessert. Simple, but it's a perpetual crowd pleaser.

7 comments:

Rico said...

I love that apple pie has a really rustic feeling about it ...and for me there's nothing like a good rustic apple pie. cheers for sharing :)

Karen said...

I have a very flaky apple pie recipe I can send you, if you want.

Sock Monkey said...

Sounds good, Karen. Go for it. One can never have too many recipes for apple pie. ;)

Karen said...

Always comes out really good for me.

BASIC APPLE PIE RECIPE

CRUST (recipe makes one double crust):

2 cups white flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cold butter, broken into small pieces
8-12 tbsp. ice water

Measure the flour, sugar and salt together. Stir to combine. Add the chilled butter pieces to the bowl. Cut them in with a pastry cutter or knife. Don't overmix them. Add the ice water. Mix until the dough holds together (add a bit more water, if necessary).

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, knead it together, then divide in half. Flatten each half into a disk, wrap in saran wrap and chill for at least half an hour. Roll out one of the disks on a lightly floured surface until you have a circle that's about 12 inches in diameter.

Put the circle in a 9" pie plate, trimming any extra dough from the edges with a sharp knife. Return it to the refrigerator until you are ready to make the pie.

Add filling (see below)

Roll out the second ball of dough and cover top. Use a fork or your fingers to pinch the edges together. cut a couple slits in the top.

FILLING

1/3 to 2/3 cup sugar (depending on tartness of apples)
2 TBS corn starch
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
Pinch of salt
8 medium sized apples (a medium apple = about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Peel, core and slice the apples. Try to keep the size of the slices even. Mix with sugar, corn starch, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove and salt in large bowl. Stir in apples. Pour into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with margarine or butter. Cover with top crust and seal the edges. Cut slits in the top.

OPTIONAL: Cover edge with 3-inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent too much browning. Remove foil during last 15 minutes of baking.

Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.

It's pretty fool-proof.

Sock Monkey said...

Interesting. You add sugar to the crust. I toss it on top in the form of cinnamon-sugar.

I have added shredded cheddar cheese to the crust a few times to sub for some of the fat, and those are the crusts my dad likes best, but I can make do with any solid fat, for a crust.

You use nutmeg, cinnamon and clove. I normally do, as well, but I also add some allspice. Yours sounds really good. I'll have to try it, and post a picture or two. We have eight apples left in the fridge; that's more than enough for a pie.

Karen said...

I've used allspice in the past, but found it gets lost amidst the other spices, the cloves in particular. Of course, you can add or omit whatever you like (or just whatever is in the cupboard at the time). For instance, my mom is convinced that nutmeg can only be used for savory dishes. I prefer sweet and have no use for nutmeg otherwise--never found a way to use it.

The use of cheese is interesting. I wouldn't have thought of that. The original recipe I cobbled this from called for shortening or lard--about 4 TBS--but it's not a favorite of mine and I just didn't see the point of it since the crust feels like it has enough fat with the one stick of butter.

Oh! The last time I made this, I used Granny Smiths. I was NOT impressed. I found I preferred a milder apple.

Sock Monkey said...

I prefer a milder apple too, for a pie or apple crisp. They just work better.