"but I miss you most of all my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall..."
Apple pie, an American staple, is my husband's favorite pie of all time. I can't believe that I made my first apple pie - ever - last year with my mom. We went to the Steilacoom Apple Squeeze where we made our own apple cider, ate apple butter on toast, split a piece of apple pie, and bought spiced cider scented candles. We then went home and made an apple pie together - it was the best day!
While we weren't able to go to the Apple Squeeze this year due to Covid, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make an apple pie again with my mom and sister.
There is something about getting in the kitchen with my family that brings me so much joy.
Let's start with the pie crust. As you already know, pie crust might be my husband's favorite food. He loves it when I brush it with butter and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the scraps; his grandma used to do that for him, and I try to keep up the tradition. To him, it is the perfect snack. For this crust, we are using the same recipe as my Spiced Peach Pie - an all butter crust using salted butter AND a 1/2 tsp of salt. Trust me with the salt, it adds so much flavor to the pie dough, and therefore flavor to the pie. I tried to get a little fancy with the pie crust of this pie, and cut the top crust into little leaves. It was a fun activity, and really brought out my creative side.
Next up - the apples. The star of the show. The majority of the apples are Granny Smith apples, however, as I mentioned in my Applesauce post, I like to sprinkle in a couple of sweeter apples as well. The sweeter apples help with the natural sweetness and flavor, so we aren't relying on so much sugar. Lastly, we used only brown sugar for this pie, no white sugar. It's so delicious, I cannot wait for you to try it!
🏷 Time: 2 hours
Ingredients
Pie Crust
2c AP Flour
1/2tsp Kosher Salt
1TBSP Sugar
3/4c Cold Salted Butter, cut into pieces
1/2c less 1 tsp Ice Water, plus more if needed
1tsp Vanilla Extract
2TBSP Heavy Cream (optional)
Apple Filling
6 medium sized cooking apples. I did 4 Granny Smith and 2 Fuji for a little extra natural sweetness
3/4c Brown Sugar
2tsp Lemon Juice
1/4tsp Cinnamon
1/8tsp Nutmeg
1/8tsp Allspice
1/4tsp Salt
2TBSP Salted Butter cubed
Directions
Pie Dough
In a food processor combine flour, salt, and sugar. Pulse 2 to 3 times.
Sprinkle pieces of butter over top of flour mixture. Pulse 3 to 4 times. The mixture should look crumbly, but not combined. About pea sized.
Pour ice water and vanilla over top of flour butter mixture and mix on low until dough is combined and pulls away from the sides. It should be one uniform ball of dough at this point
Turn dough out into a large zip top bag and press into a rectangle shape.
Chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to 24 hours.
NOTE: If you don't have time to make this beforehand, the sweet spot is 2 hours of chill time
Filling
Peel, core, and thinly slice apples to about 1/8 inch thick
In a large mixing bowl, add apples, lemon juice, spices, and salt
Toss to combine and set aside
Bake
Preheat oven to 450F
Pull pie dough out of refrigerator and cut in half
Roll out the first half to 1/8in thickness. Repeat with the 2nd half and set aside
NOTE: The bottom half should be about 1/8in thickness, and trimmed to at least 1in wider than the pie dish
Press the pie dough into the pie dish and crimp the top edges.
You will want to make sure the pie dough fully gets into the corners of the pie dish
Spoon the apple filling into the pie dish and top with the cubed butter
At this point you can either cut the 2nd half of the pie dough into lattice and do a lattice strip topping. Or you can drape the pie dough over top, crimp the edges into the bottom half, and cut four slits in the top of the pie dough for the steam to escape - It's up to you. I cut the pie dough into little leaves and used a knife to make the leaf veins. Whenever we messed up, we just rolled the pie dough back out and started again. It was fun to get creative
For a golden sheen to the pie crust, brush the top with 2TBSP of heavy cream
Bake at 450F for 18 minutes, then reduce heat to 350F and bake another 22 minutes. The crust should be slightly browned
Let cool for 10 minutes and serve warm with ice cream or fresh whipped cream
Enjoy!
