The last couple of weeks have been crazy awesome with Kadima! Apple Picking was lots of fun. Not only did we eat at least 5 different varieties of apples, pick them, and bring them home, there was also a crazy Corn Maze! We also collected two HUGE bags of canned goods to donate to the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen. GREAT JOB! At the bottom of this post, I have added my family's recipe for apple pie and a great recipe for crockpot applesauce... IF you have managed not to eat all of your apples yet.
UP NEXT: FREE BIRDS in theaters! Sunday afternoon November 3 at the RAVE Cinemas in North Haven. Time TBD
My Family’s Apple Pie Recipe
Pie Dough: Enough for a double-crust 9-inch pie (e.g. an
apple pie with a lattice top)
2 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus a little more
for dusting your work surface
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons chilled Crisco
12 tablespoons = 1 ½ sticks cold unsalted butter cut into
little (½-inch) pieces (can use margarine to make pie pareve)
6 to 8 tablespoons ice water
(1) In a food
processor, briefly mix the flour, salt, sugar, and Crisco until it has the
texture of coarse sand. Scatter the butter pieces over the flour mixture and
process until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse bread crumbs,
with butter bits no larger than small peas, maybe about ten 1-second pulses.
Turn the
mixture into a medium bowl.
(2) Sprinkle 6
tablespoons of the ice water over the mixture. Mix in the water with your
hands, or with the broad side of a fairly firm spatula, until the dough sticks
together, adding up to 2 tablespoons more ice water if the dough will not come
together.
(2a) The French,
including Julia Child, add a step here that my family includes, because we are
from Paris: le fraisage. I quote here
from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, v. 1. “Place the dough
on a lightly floured pastry board. With the heel of one hand, not the palm
which is too warm, rapidly press the pastry by two-spoonful bits down on the
board and away from you in a firm, quick smear of about 6 inches. This
constitutes the final blending of fat and flour, or fraisage.”
(3) If you are
making a double-crust pie, divide the dough into two more or less equal balls
and flatten each one into a 4-inch disk. Wrap them in plastic and refrigerate for
at least 1 hour or up to 2 days before rolling. Otherwise, form one ball and do
the same; you will have some left-over dough, which can be refrigerated and
used next time.
The FILLING:
8-10 apples. Peel and
take out all of the seeds, can cut it into quarters to do so.
Slice super thin.
Put in large bowl with the juice of ½ a lemon and ½ - 1/3
cups of sugar.
Toss them with ½ tsp salt and cinnamon to taste. Can add
maple syrup, nutmeg, etc too.
(4) For a
double-crust pie: remove one of your disks of dough from the refrigerator and
place it on a lightly floured work surface. If it became too cold, you can wait about 10 minutes or so for it to thaw,
and/or flatten the dough by whacking it with your rolling pin.
There are a
number of ways to roll the dough. Your aim is to create a circle about 3 or 4 inches
larger than your 9-inch pie dish with an equal height throughout. I lightly roll
the dough from the center outwards and turn the dough clockwise after each
roll. I use a pastry or “bench” scraper to free the dough from sticking to the
surface, adding a little flour along the way. Pressing in another piece you’ve
grabbed from the edge can repair rips in the dough. Once the dough has reached the right
size, fold it in half and again in half, and unfold it onto your plate. (This makes it easy to center). Lift up
the edges of the dough and gently ease it down into the lower creases of the
pan. Press lightly to adhere the dough to the sides of the pan.
Use
scissors to trim the dough overhang around the top to within a ½-inch from the
outer rim. For single-crust pies, create a decorative edge using your fingers
or a fork. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Here the recipe divides, depending on whether you’re making
a double-crust or single crust pie.
(5a) Double-crust
Pie.
Preheat
oven to 450°.
Prepare your filling.
Take the
second disk of dough out of the refrigerator and treat it the same as the
first, again creating a uniform circle about 3 to 4 inches larger than the
circumference of the pie plate.
Remove the
piecrust from the refrigerator, and fill it with your fruit. Drape the top
crust over the pie, fold the overhanging dough under the edge already there,
and crimp the new “double” edge with your fingers or with a fork. With a sharp
knife, cut 2 or 4 slits in the top crust to allow the steam to escape. Brush
the top lightly with milk or egg, and sprinkle with a little sugar.
OPTIONAL
BUT BEST: Refrigerate pie for at least 40 minutes.
Put the pie
on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Lower heat to 350° and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes, or until
the pie is golden brown. Cool on a rack before serving warm or at room
temperature.
(5b) Single crust pie.
Here, often the piecrust is partially baked before the
filling is added. This is especially true for pies whose filling is of berries,
which release a lot of liquid as they cook and would cause a non-baked crust to
become soggy.
Preheat oven to 375°.
Remove the dough-lined pie plate from the refrigerator,
and press a large sheet of doubled or heavy-duty aluminum foil into the pie,
folding up the edges of the foil to protect your decorative edge. Distribute 2
cups of ceramic or metal weights onto the aluminum – or use rice or beans to
serve the same purpose – and bake for about 20 minutes. Carefully remove the
foil and weights by gathering the corners of the foil and pulling it up and
out.
Continue baking for another
5 to 6 minutes.
Remove partially bakes crust from the oven and layer the apples in the
pie crust. Put little pats of butter or margerine on top of the apples.
Put the pie back in the oven and bake at 350 for 1 hour or until golden
brown
Cool on a rack before
serving warm or at room temperature.
CROCKPOT APPLESAUCE - taken from http://mommymakesitbetter.blogspot.com/2012/04/crock-pot-applesauce.html
Ingredients:
-
8 medium apples (Use a combination of Golden Delicious, Honey Crisp, Fuji,
Gala, etc.)
(I filled the crockpot, using about 20 small apples)
- 1 strips of lemon peel - use a vegetable peeler
3 inch cinnamon stick
5 tsp light brown sugar (unpacked) - or agave
1. Peel, core and chop the apples.
2. Add the sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice and cinnamon stick.
3. Set crock pot to low and cook for 6 hours. Stir apples occasionally, apples will slowly become a delicious applesauce. Remove cinnamon stick and use an immersion blender to blend until smooth or if you prefer a chunky sauce, leave sauce intact. (I used a whisk, which gave the sauce a nice chunky consistency.)
4. Can and process as you would other recipes or keep refrigerated up to 3 weeks.
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