Readers of this site will recall that a couple of weeks ago I visited Hidden Gem Orchards in Southbury, Connecticut. There I bought a peck—about 15—Northern Spy apples to be used in an apple pie. They sat forlorn on my table, waiting for me to block off time to bake them in a pie. When I noticed them turning brown in spots, that was the kick I needed to get it done.
There are a number of good recipes for apple pie filling that you can find online. The basic ingredients are sliced apples (duh!), cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg.
The most time-consuming part of the process is peeling and slicing the apples. My wife, eager for a good dessert, helped me with that part. My only problem was that, even thought the recipe called for me to put salt and cornstarch on the apples and macerate them for two hours, I STILL ended up with water at the bottom of the dessert after baking. I’ve had this problem with peach pie in the summer, too. Will someone please get me Paul Hollywood’s number so I can ask him how to fix this?
The crust you see in the picture was, I have to say, one of my best. It starts out as a simple mixture of 1¼ cups of all-purpose flour, a touch of salt, a stick of chilled, unsalted butter, and ¼ cup of water. Stir the salt and flour together then dump into a food processor. After that, take the chilled butter and cut into little squares. Then, put the squares into the food processor. Pulse until the flour looks crumbly. Finally, dump it into a stand mixer. Using the flat paddle attachment, slowly mix in the water while the mixer is running. It will come together into a ball. Cover the ball with plastic wrap and chill for at least four hours. Voilà! Pie crust dough.
For this I made two batches of dough. For the top batch, I cut the four slits to let the steam escape then coated with an egg wash and sprinkled a nice amount of turbinado sugar. (Demerara will also work.)
And that is it. It’s a classic fall dessert and best served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Bon appétit!
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