All of my friends know that I’m a huge fan of fruit flavored sodas. Grape is my top choice, but orange is a close second. When I was flipping through my copy of Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented
For my final New York City themed dessert I wanted to do something with apples to reference the “Big Apple.” I stuck with the miniature theme and put together these bite size apple pies. I was really happy I made a test batch a few days prior to our party because the first time I tried them the apples did not cook enough. It only takes 30 minutes to get the crust to a perfect golden brown, and in that time even very small apple pieces weren’t fully cooked. I could have partially cooked them on the stove top, but instead I just diced the apples for the second batch and that worked great.
As I was making this pie I kept thinking, “This is why I don’t make pies very often.” Even though there are fewer steps and fewer ingredients than your typical cake, baking a pie feels much more time consuming. Peeling and slicing the fruit seemed to take forever. But then I started making the lattice crust, and it was so easy and looked so beautiful that I resolved to make more pies. And when I tasted the pie this desire became even stronger. It was by far the best crust I’ve ever made. It’s tender and buttery and really wasn’t that difficult to work with. This pie bag made rolling the crust a breeze, but I see no reason why two sheets of Saran Wrap wouldn’t serve the same purpose. Read the rest of this entry »
A few weeks ago Pat asked me why I don’t like pie. I thought this was an odd question because I do like pie. I actually like it a lot. He pointed out that I haven’t made a pie the entire time I’ve known him. At first I was skeptical. I’ve know him for almost two years. It didn’t seem possible that I haven’t made a pie for that long considering how often I bake, but he was right. I realized I needed to make a pie soon to remedy this strange gap in my baking repertoire.
My Nana makes amazing apple pie, but I didn’t use her recipe. She only uses shortening in her crust, but I wanted the extra flavor that butter provides. I found this recipe on Epicurious. It claims to be the “best ever”. I don’t know if I’d go that far, but it is very good. I definitely will use this in the future.
The number one reason I don’t make pie very often is that rolling out pie crust can be a big pain. To try and combat this problem I bought this pie bag from the King Arthur Flour baking store. Since I haven’t made a pie in such a long time it’s sat unused in my cupboard. It actually works really well. It completely eliminates the problem of your dough sticking to the counter. And since the dough doesn’t stick you can turn it after every roll, so you actually get a round crust.
I used 4 gala apples and 3 granny smiths for the filling. I love the taste of gala apples, but think they were a little too soft. They got a bit soft and watery in the pie. I also think I probably cooked it about 10 minutes longer than necessary.
