We picked our own apples and peaches last weekend from Larriland Farms (which you should totally visit) if you live near Baltimore. Since we got a lot of apples, we decided to bake an apple pie. Curiously, even though apple pie is an American cultural symbol, it did not originate in the US, and was consumed long before the European colonization of the US (ref). Let us now move on to the recipe:
Ingredients (serves 6)
For pie crust: (you can completely skip this part if you use store bought pie crusts)
3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces (about 1.5 sticks)
2 egg yolks
3 tbsp ice cold water
pinch of salt
For caramel:
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp water
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 cup heavy cream (we actually used milk since we did not have heavy cream)
a few drops vanilla essence
For filling:
5 medium sized apples (we used Gala Apples)
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
Procedure:
We first make the pastry crust. In a large bowl, combine, the flour, salt and the pieces of butter slowly. It is recommended that you use a pastry blender, but since we don’t have one, I simply used my hands. Crush any pieces of butter into the flour till they are mixed in fairly well. There will be a lot of clumps at this point. Add the egg yolks and continue to mix. At this point, the dough will start coming together. Add the ice-cold water slowly, taking care not to make the dough too wet. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.
Meanwhile, peel and slice the apples thin and store them in a bowl full of water and the juice of one lemon to prevent them from browning.
Next, we make the caramel sauce. In a pot, add the sugar and water, and keep stirring on medium heat till all the sugar is dissolved. Remove from flame, and add the cream and wine slowly. Return to heat and add the vanilla essence. Continue to cook till the quantity is halved. Keep aside.
Now we make the pie crust. Remove the dough from the fridge and allow to cool for about 15 minutes till the dough is pliable enough to be rolled. Cut the dough into two separate balls. On a wooden board, roll out the dough balls on a floured wooden board into flat circles large enough to cover your pie pan. Lay one of them flat inside the pie pie pan and press it tight.
Strain the apples from the lemon-water and keep aside. In a large bowl, add the flour and cinnamon powder. Add the apples and toss them well till they are coated with the flour-cinnamon mixture. Now place a layer of apple slices on the bottom of the pastry. Shingle the slices so as to reduce any gaps. Pour some of the caramel sauce evenly on the apples. Now place more apples and repeat the process.
Place the second pastry circle on top of the pie to make the top layer of the pie crust. Cut slits on top of the pie so that steam can escape. Now, ideally you should cover the pie with the pastry layers and pinch the sides so that they are sealed. Unfortunately in my case, I had one store bought crust, and I made the other one myself. So the two of them were not the same size. I realized that this is not a very bad thing as my pie still turned out great.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the pie pan into the oven. Cover it lightly with a piece of folded aluminum foil. This is called foil tenting, and is done so that the crust does not cook faster than the apples. Bake on middle rack for 25 minutes. Remove the foil tent and cook for about 30 more minutes till the top crust is cooked and the pie is bubbling. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at-least 1 hour, else the pie will break apart.
Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream.
Krishnamurthy Koduvayur Viswanathan | 
10 20th, 2010| 
