Apple pie: go homemade, or go home.

Happy Sunday, everyone! I'm feeling quite sedate at the moment, owing to the fact that I did the City2Surf this morning! 14. freaking. kilometres. With 2 kilometres of continuous ascent up 'Heartbreak Hill' *faints*. I think the few slices of apple pie I had last night won't cause too much damage in the waistline department, wouldn't you agree?

Apple pie is one of my favourite desserts, and despite what the title of this post may suggest, I'm no pie-snob. I'm a sucker for all kinds of apple pie. The one from the Golden Arches with the thin, tacky crust and the gluey insides? Love it. The pre-made, frozen ones that go all soggy when you reheat it at home? Love those too. I haven't had the privilege of trying the sky-high 'pie that ate Newtown' version from The Pie Tin, but just looking at pictures of it is enough to elicit a Pavlovian flood of drool outta me. 

When it comes to pies, the thing which people seem to obsess over is the crust. More specifically, that it be "flaky". Personally, I don't mind a doughy or soggy crust on a meat pie, but when it comes to dessert pies, I like a crumbly, buttery, so-flaky-it-shatters crust as much as the next pie enthusiast. 

I do believe I've mastered the art of the flaky pie crust with this apple pie. The bakers out there would have heard this a million times, but for those who are looking to make the pie crust from scratch for the very first time - here are a few pointers for the perfect, flaky pie crust:

1. Keep the butter COLD. I took mine out of the fridge right before I incorporated into the dough. It's probably easier to use a food processor to "cut" the butter into the flour, but I just used my fingers to rub it in. Cold fingers help! Or just use one of them fancy hand-held pastry cutters.

2. Do not overwork the dough! After you add in the water, you will need to knead the dough slightly get it all into one heap, but kneading it too much isn't a good idea because it 1) encourages gluten formation, which will make your crust hard and tacky and 2) all the handling will make those precious lumps of butter in the dough melt, which leads to my next point...

3. Visible lumps of butter in the dough is good! It means that, when you bake it, the butter will melt and leave distinct layers of pastry behind (manifesting as the "flakes"). 

4. Lastly, adding in a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar per pie crust helps to prevent gluten formation. You learn something new everyday.

For the pie filling, I forwent the usual Granny Smiths and opted for Fujis instead, as we have a whole box of those to get through from when we visited the Flemington Markets a fortnight ago. Contrary to popular belief, those are not too sweet to use in an apple pie. If an overly sweet pie filling is what you're worried about, simply add less sugar to it. The Fujis yielded a good texture once baked - soft, but not mushy. I used Joy the Baker's recipe for the filling (I love her site!), and it turned out great. 

I had to roll my pastry out very thinly because the recipe I used was for an open-faced pie (should have thought of that beforehand!), but I managed to get everything sealed, and even put some decorative markings along the sides. The love heart cut-out ended up looking apple-shaped by the time it was done baking, which is just as well! :D

Classic Apple Pie, with the perfect flaky crust

Makes one 29cm pie

Ingredients

For the pie crust: (adapted from The Purple Foodie)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons white granulated sugar

170g cold butter, cut into 2cm cubes
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup ice water

1 egg yolk (to glaze the crust)

For the pie filling: (adapted from Joy the Baker)

800g apples of the baking variety (Granny Smith, Fuji, Pink Lady, etc,), peeled, cored and cut into 5mm slices

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/3 cup white granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Method

1. Start by making the dough for the pie crust. Stir together the flour and sugar. Add the cubes of butter, and using your hands/pastry cutter, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse bread crumbs, with a few odd chunks of butter here and there. Add the apple cider vinegar. Add the water spoonful by spoonful (using your hands to gather together the dough) until the dough forms one cohesive mass.

2. Divide the dough into two pieces: 2/3 of the dough for one piece and 1/3 for the other. Flatten both pieces into discs. Wrap with cling wrap, and put it into the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes.

3. To make the pie filling: In a large bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, allspice and salt, and stir to mix. Cover the bowl and and let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. After that time, there should be a puddle of juices at the bottom of the bowl. Strain the apples (keep the juice!). Put the juice in a small saucepan with the 2 butter, and heat it over medium heat until it starts to boil. Turn down the heat, and let it bubble away until you have about 3/4 the original volume. Take off heat, and set aside.

4. Toss the apples in the cornstarch until well-coated. Pour in the reduced butter and juice mixture. Stir to coat.

5. (You can start this step while the apples are still straining): Take the large dough disc out of the fridge, and roll it out to around 3mm thick. Transfer it into the pie dish, and push the dough into the edges of the dish. Return the dish to the fridge for about 10 minutes.

6. Take the pie dish which has been lined with dough out of the fridge, and pour in the apple filling. Take the smaller dough disc out of the fridge, and roll it out to form the top crust. Cut a hole in the centre, or make a few slits along the sides so that hot air which builds up inside the pie during baking can get out. Drape the top crust over the apple filling, and seal the edges. Use a fork to make some decorative markings. 

7. Cover the unbaked pie loosely with cling wrap, and return to the fridge to chill for an hour.

8. At least 20 minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 degrees Fahrenheit). Place the baking rack towards the bottom of the oven. Take the pie out of the fridge, remove the cling wrap cover, and brush the top crust with egg yolk. Place in oven, and bake for 45-50 minutes. Halfway through baking, you may have to cover the top of the pie with a piece of foil to stop it from burning. The pie is done baking when the apples are nice and soft.

9. Remove pie from oven, and allow to cool on a cooling rack for at least 4 hours before serving.

An unseasonal 'Pumpkin' Pie

Purists will no doubt turn their noses up at this pumpkin pie of mine since it is neither the appropriate time for pumpkin pie (Thanksgiving and Christmas have, sadly, gone past for another year), nor was it actually made from pumpkin. In fact, I used kabocha squash, which is much more readily available here in Australia than the standard 'Jack-o-Lantern' type pumpkin.

There are times when I wake up with the intense desire to try out a particular recipe, but such was not the case for this pie. What had transpired was that my sister had cajoled my grandmother into buying her a kabocha squash, without specifying what she wanted to do with it. Now, I do have a few, nifty squash recipes up my sleeve, due to my previous life as a vegetarian-in-training (thank goodness I've over the phase), but I've eaten so much squash in its many permutations during my previous, misguided attempt to adopt a "healthier" lifestyle (what folly - humans are omnivores xD), that I would be quite happy never to see roasted squash again. I wracked my brains for ideas, and the obvious choice was -

 Pumpkin (or squash) pie!

I forwent the "healthier" alternatives (come on, substitute the flour and butter in the crust with all the crushed cashews and medjool dates you want; it's still a carb-laden dessert) and chose Joy of Baking's classic pumpkin pie recipe. If this is what the real thing tastes like, it's no wonder that the Americans are so obsessed with their pumpkin pies during the fall. The filling was firm after chilling, but still creamy, and very aromatic with the spices used (cinnamon, ginger, and cloves). The double cream the recipe called for no doubt accounted for the wonderfully smooth texture. The shortcrust dough was a dream to work with, and yielded a buttery, crumbly, and slightly sweet crust. It was so good that I wouldn't think twice about eating the crust on its own.

Shall we take a look at the recipe, then?

Start off by opening up a small kabocha squash, weighing around 2kg. You'll only need half of it for this pie. Be careful of your fingers! Halve it, then scoop out the insides of one half.

Further cut the hollowed out half (weighing approximately 850g) into fist-sized pieces. Keep the skin on. To cook it (so that we can puree it), we're going to steam it. 

The conventional way of making pumpkin/squash puree is to roast it in the oven, but I reasoned that roasting dries out the vegetable and gives you those crusty, burnt bits on the surface, which would make pureeing much more difficult (especially without a food processor). Steaming cooks the pumpkin without drying any part out. The squash is done steaming when a fork inserts easily into the flesh, around 15-30 minutes on high heat.

The squash, after steaming

Those without asbestos fingers should wait for the squash to cool before attempting to remove the skins. Or you can be hardcore like me and do it straight off the steamer, yelping in pain the whole time (okay, not so hardcore). Easiest way to do it is to scrape it off with a knife; it should come off easily. Once the skins are off, turn it into a pulp by putting it in a blender or food processor. I used my mortar and pestle, because I couldn't be bothered to get out either appliance. A few lumps is okay, but if you want a really smooth puree, you can push it through a fine sieve. I didn't do it.

Squash puree

Set aside the puree. Prepare the shortcrust dough by combining flour, salt, sugar and cubes of chilled butter in a bowl.

Rub the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers, until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Then add the cold water little by little, incorporating it into the mixture, until you get a dough that just sticks together to form one mass. Don't knead it, or else your crust will be tough.

 

At this point, we're going to stray from convention. As Frost wrote, 

Two roads diverged in a yellow road, and I -

I took the one less travelled by .

And that has made all the difference.

(Thinks wistfully about high school English classes).

Ahem, the relevance here is that, instead of chilling the dough in the fridge at this point and then rolling it out later, and then lining the pie tin, and then trimming it, we're going to line the tin right after making the dough, while it is still soft and malleable. This way is so much easier, and gives you so much more control over the proportions. Not to mention reducing the risk of tearing the pastry. The result is a somewhat uneven lining of the tin, but it does the job and is good enough for me. Now we shall chill it. Cover it with cling wrap, and pop it into the fridge for 30 minutes. While the pastry case is chilling, we will make the filling.

Extra thick double cream

Whisk together the double cream and eggs. Add this to the squash puree, as well as the light brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves, and salt. Whisk together until combined and smooth.

Set filling aside while we pre-bake the pie case.

Even though the recipe from Joy of Baking doesn't ask for the pie shell to be blind-baked, I personally prefer to do so, just to make sure the pastry isn't soggy. Pierce the dough with a fork. Fill the pie tin with weights over a piece of parchment paper like shown above, and bake at 190℃ for 7 minutes. Take out of oven, remove parchment paper and pie weights, and return to oven to bake for another 5 minutes. Take it out; it is now ready to be filled with the pie filling.

The pre-baked pie shell, ready for the filling

Pour in the filling:

And bake at 190℃ for 45-55 minutes. Once done baking, remove from oven, allow to cool slightly, and place on wire rack to completely cool.

I had my oven on the wrong setting for half the baking time, hence the burnt bit. No biggie.

Classic...with an Australian twist ;D

Recipe for Pumpkin (kabocha squash) Pie

Adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients

Makes one 9-inch or 23cm pie

For the shortcrust pastry base:

1 1/4 cups (175g) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon (14g) granulated white sugar

1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into cubes

1/8 to 1/4 cup (30-60ml) ice water

For the pumpkin filling:

3 large eggs

500g pumpkin puree (from approximately 850g uncooked pumpkin or kabocha squash with skin on)

1/2 cup (120ml) double cream

1/2 cup (110g) light brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

Method


1. Cook the squash by cutting to fist-sized pieces (leaving the skin on) and steaming, covered, over high heat for 15-30 minutes, or until the flesh can be pierced easily with a fork. Remove from heat, allow to cool, and remove skin with knife. Puree with blender, food processor, or with a masher. To make the puree extra smooth, push it through a fine sieve. Set aside the puree.

2. To make the shortcrust pastry dough: Combine flour, white granulated sugar and salt, stirring together. Incorporate the cubes of chilled butter into the dry ingredients by rubbing it in with fingers, until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. Add ice water until mixture just comes together to form a dough. Press to line the pie tin. Cover tightly with cling wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 190℃ (375 degrees Fahrenheit). Place rack near the bottom of the oven.

4. To make the pie filling: Whisk together eggs and double cream, then add this mixture to the squash puree, whisking together. Add in light brown sugar, ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves, and salt, whisking until completely incorporated. Set aside.

4. After 30 minutes of chilling, remove the shortcrust pastry dough from the fridge. Pierce the dough all over with a fork. Cover with parchment paper, then fill the pie tin with baking weights on top of the parchment paper. Bake in preheated oven for 7 minutes. Remove parchment paper and baking weights, and bake for a further 5 minutes. Take out of oven.

5. Pour pie filling into the baked pie crust. Return to oven, and bake for 45-55 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before slicing. Serve at room temperature or chilled.