Apple Pie :)

Merry Christmas! 

I don’t know about you, but my favorite dessert for the holidays (or any other time of the year) is apple pie.  Whether it’s traditional, caramel, crumble - you name it - it’s the first dessert on my plate! This year for Christmas Eve we are going to my aunt and uncles for dinner and our family is bringing dessert so I searched for a new apple pie recipe.  This break I’ve been particularly obsessed with my sister’s book, “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking,” and so far have enjoyed everything I’ve tried.  The recipe included is the Classic Apple Pie.  Although it is nothing crazy, I’ve found with apple pies sometimes less is more, the simplest of recipes turn out to be the best.  The recipe is as follows:

Classic Apple Pie from Baked

2 balls of Classic Pie Dough (recipe to follow)
½ teaspoon cornstarch
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
7 medium Granny Smith apples
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon whiskey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large egg, beaten
1 tablespoon raw sugar

Dust a work surface with a sprinkling of flour. Unwrap one of the balls of chilled dough and put it directly on the work surface. Roll out into a 12-inch round. Transfer the dough to a pie dish and carefully work it into the pie dish, folding any overhang under and crimping the edge as you go. Wrap and freeze the crust until firm, about 2 hours, or up to 3 months.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch and the light brown sugar. Peel and core the Granny Smith apples, then cut them into 1/8-inch wedges.

Heat the butter over medium heat in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan. Swirl the saucepan occasionally until the butter begins to brown. As soon as the butter is evenly browned, add half the apple wedges and cook over low heat for 10 minutes, or until the apples are softened.

Add the remaining apples and the cornstarch/sugar mixture. Mix until the sugar has melted, then add the vanilla, whiskey, and cinnamon to the saucepan and cook for 5 minutes, or until the filling is bubbly and thick. Do not overcool.

Dust a work surface with a sprinkling of flour. Unwrap the remaining ball of chilled dough and roll out into a 12-inch round.

Pour the pie filling into the frozen pie crust, and top the second dough round. Trim the dough, leaving a ½-inch overhang. Crimp the edges together, brush with the beaten egg, and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Cut 3 steam vents into the pie crust.

Bake the pie until the filling bubbles and crust is golden brown, about 1 hour. Cool the pie on a rack for 1 hour. Serve warm or at room temperature. The pie can be stored in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for up to 2 days

Classic Pie Dough 

yields: two balls of dough, enough for 2 (9-inch) single-crusted pies or 1 (9-inch) double-crusted pie

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon fine salt

1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter

3/4 cup ice cold water

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, and salt together

Cut the cold butter into cubes and toss the cubes in the flour mixture to coat.  Put the mixture in the bowl of a food processor and pulse in short bursts until the pieces of butter are the size of hazelnuts. 

While pulsing in quick, 4-second bursts, drizzle the ice water into the food processor through the feed tube. 

As soon as the dough comes together in a ball, remove it from the food processor and divide it into two equal balls.  Flatten to a disk and wrap each disk first in parchment paper and then in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate the disks until firm, about 1 hour.  (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months.  Thaw in the refrigerator before proceeding with the recipe.)

For the dough, as requested by my Dad, I used a little over 1/4 cup of ice cold vodka and the rest water.  What difference it makes, I’m not sure, but I find it better when I just listen to what my Dad says in the kitchen.  Also, I used light brown sugar to sprinkle on top of the crust at the end instead of raw sugar because I could not find any in our house.  Other than that I stuck the recipe pretty closely, although I found I had to use more apples than they called for.  I ended up using 11 granny smith apples because they were slightly smaller needed.  The aroma and taste from sautéing the apples in the sugar mixture, whiskey, vanilla and cinnamon was absolutely amazing.  The apples tasted great and I can’t wait to try some tonight.  

This break has been quite an adventure with cooking and baking as we are in our temporary house while my Dad builds our new house.  Below is a picture of the kitchen (note: there is no dishwasher ahhh) and please excuse the mess as I took the picture immediately after putting the pie in the oven.  There’s maybe 5 square feet of space between all the counters and about 1.5 feet of counter space.  While the kitchen is a mess to deal with, I could easily deal with waking up to the view from the living room every morning (pictured below)

Once again, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I believe Liv will be posting sometime soon about the fabulous cupcakes she made the other day so look forward to that! And here's a picture o the finished pie! :)