4 SEASONS FOOD: High Apple Pie, in the sky hopes!

Did you get that song reference in my title? Frank Sinatra? Well at least I know you got it,
Marianna :)

Last Sunday morning came after a weekend beginning with a crazy night out with my family, a hung over Saturday, and then an accidentally early night. So Sunday morning I had a strange amount of energy and, lucky for me, an inordinate amount of apples!

Whenever I go to the grocery store I normally stick pretty closely to my list. But with Nick, it's as if no list exists. He disappears for 5 minutes and shows back up with an armful of things that either looked good, or reminded him of New Zealand, or were his favourite colour... So I've started reaching outside of my comfort zone and list following (exciting right?) and picking up things that I think might be of good use sometime. And thanks to this new habit, I already had all the ingredients I needed to make these pies! I had a lot of energy, but there was no way I was going to change out of my pjs to go to the grocery store. The great thing about food blogging is that you only have to take pictures of the food, no selfies! I can wear anything I want! Who knows what I'm wearing?! I could be naked! (Sorry Dad, just trying to boost my ratings)

So anyways, here's my recipe for apple pie. I made 4 pies using a "texas-size" muffin pan because that's all I have, but if you have a pie pan you can use that. This is a three step recipe. And depending on how much time and energy you have to put into making these you can make this as homemade or semi-homemade as you want :) You can buy the pastry, but I wouldn't suggest buying filling. Because then what would be the point right? But don't be nervous making your own pastry. This recipe is practically fool proof, it hasn't failed me yet!

Homemade Apple Pie

Crust:
1 1/2 cup pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp butter
5 - 6 tbsp ice water
1 egg yolk
1 sheet frozen puff pastry
1 egg + 1 egg white
raw sugar

Filling:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 apples, peeled
5 heaping tbsp brown sugar
1 heaping tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
3 tbsp flour

Making your own pastry isn't difficult, as long as you follow one simple rule. KEEP EVERYTHING COLD ALL THE TIME. When things are cold, they don't blend very nicely. And that's exactly what you want to happen, because the pieces of butter that aren't smoothly blended in will create pockets in the dough once you put it in the oven (from their water content evaporating) and give you all those lovely flaky layers!

So, on with the recipe. I took lots of pictures this time because I feel like it's easier to show this in pictures than with words.

Ice Cold Butter. I chopped the butter into small cubes and put it in the freezer while I assembled all the other ingredients.

In a mixing bowl, combine your butter with the flour and salt. Use a fork, two knives, or your finger tips. Work quickly so that the butter doesn't melt.

This is what you want your flour, salt, and butter mixture to look like. See the size of the chunks of butter? Mostly pea sized, some a little bit bigger.

Next add in the egg yolk and ice water. I put a glassful into the freezer at the same time as the butter and let it get ice cold. Then just measure out as many tablespoons as you need to make a dough. Add the water in a tablespoon at a time. Sometimes you'll only need 4, this time I needed 6. It all depends on the moisture in the air.


This is what your finished dough should look like. See the spots of yellow? That's the unincorporated chunks of butter!

Once your dough is made, wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to chill out for at least an hour.

Next up the caramel. This is an extra step you don't have to do if you don't want. I just like the way it fills in the holes of the lattice top with golden brown caramel. I mean, you're taking all this time to make your own pastry, you'd might as well make some caramel too.

Put the sweetened condensed milk into a shallow pan (to make things go faster) and cook on medium heat until it is light golden brown.

This is after 5 minutes. It'll bubble pretty hard until...

It thickens and turns brown. This is when you turn off the heat!

Cook the caramel to this stage, take it off the heat and let it cool until you can handle it with your hands.

In the mean time...

One apple per pie means these are good for you!

Chop up the apples into a small dice. If you are making one big pie, I would suggest cutting the apple into thin slices, rather than a dice. The dice is nice (hehe) for small pies because that means you can fit more apple into the small shells. But I definitely prefer the texture you get from thinly sliced apples in a whole pie.

Mix the apples with the sugar, spices, salt, and flour.

Now time to take the pastry dough you made earlier out of the fridge. Roll it out to about 1/8-1/4 inch thick (just thick enough to hold everything together). And cut it out into four large circles big enough to act as the bottoms of your pie shell. If you are making one pie, just lay the whole piece over your pie plate and trim around the edges. KEEP THE TRIM!

Next fill your pie shells with the filling. Heap it up! The apple will cook down during cooking.

This is the optional stage. If you made that caramel with the sweetened condensed milk, take it by the heaping tablespoonful and make 4 flat discs. Lay each disc over your filling. This layer does two things. First it gives you a somewhat gooeyer caramely filling when the pies are cooked and still warm, and second it fills in the gaps of your lattice top. Without this caramel you will have an equally delicious pie, but when the apples cook down you will see them through the wholes in the lattice top.

Solution? If you aren't making the caramel then may I suggest making a double recipe of the crust, omitting the puff pastry lattice top, and making a whole top instead.

Now is the time to take your puff pastry sheet. Feel free to make a double batch of homemade pastry dough to make the lattice top, I just made mine with puff pastry because I like the texture and flavour of it as a pie top when doing the lattice pattern.

For it all you have to do is cut 2cm strips and lay them diagonally cross-hatched. I then used the excess trim that I saved from the bottoms to wrap around the lattice giving the pies a neat finish. All that you have to do now is egg wash those babies, sprinkle them with coarse sugar, and bake!