My Life Without Training Wheels: Not your Mama's Apple Pie.

So, I got to go to Jaemor farms today to buy some farm fresh produce. It's about an hour away but well worth the trip. I only go there once or twice a year, usually in the fall to get apples and the elusive pink pumpkin (aka Warsaw Buff Pumpkin). It is my favorite pumpkin to bake with. However, that's not what I'm blogging about! Today I bought a peck of Apples for $10.00. I don't remember what kind they were, but they are yellowy green with a bit of red on them. They are a nice blend of tart and sweet, just perfect for an apple pie. So, since I was making apple pie, I thought I would share my recipe with you.

Ingredients:

Crust (Pate Brise)

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

2 sticks of cold butter cut into pieces

1/4-1/2 cup ice cold water

Filling

7 apples cored, peeled and thinly sliced

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 tsp cinnamon

nutmeg to taste

3 tbs butter sliced

First you need to start with the pie crust since it will need to be refrigerated for one hour before you can roll it out. It is fine to make it in the morning or even a day or two ahead of time. You will need a food processor to make it this way so if you don't have one then you can buy or make your own crust. I do have to tell you that this crust is the BEST and it's my fave...mostly because it has two sticks of butter in it. So combine the first three ingredients in the food processor and pulse until mixed. Then add your butter pieces all spread out like so:

Then mix that until it resembles a corn meal like consistency. Next, with the food processor on high, pour the icy cold water in through the tube veeeeerrrryyyy slooooowly.....

.....until the dough holds together and forms a ball. You may not use all of the water, but I generally do.

Scrape the dough out onto a piece a plastic wrap, press into a disk, wrap and refrigerate for one hour. Meanwhile, go ahead and peel, core and thinly slice your apples. Put them in a fairly large bowl, I had to pour them into a larger bowl a bit later on, and add the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.

This is also a great moment to have your ~~helper~~ Sous Chef add some ingredients.

After you have added all of the dry ingredients stir to coat and let it sit while your crust refrigerates. Give it a stir every now and then while you wait.

Once your crust is ready to come out of fridge, break it in half and roll out half of it. Be sure to roll it pretty thin because pie crust is best when it's thin. Here's a neat trick I learned from my grandmother, If you don't have a plastic sheet for rolling out dough, you can do what we do. Find an old pillowcase that you don't use anymore (make sure it's clean), flour it really well and roll your crust out on it. Afterwards you can just shake the excess flour into the trash can and toss the pillowcase in the wash. After it's washed I usually just fold it in half and roll it around my rolling pin for the next time.

The pillowcase is also great for helping me flip my pie crust into the pan without breaking it. I just put my hands under the pillowcase in the middle of the dough, put the pan on upside down and then flip the whole thing. Once its flipped I arrange the crust and press it into the edges of the pie dish.

Pour in those nicely coated apples....

...then top with the 3 tbsp of butter.

Normally at this point I would roll out the other half of the dough cut some slits and flip it onto the pie, but my Sous Chef insisted that we make a lattice pie. So, since I don't have a fancy schmancy wavy cutter I just used my pizza cutter to cut the dough into not very even strips.

Then I used my very best elementary school weaving skills. I don't think I could explain this if I tried. So here's the best picture I could come up with.