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Favorite Apple Pie
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Apple Pie Recipe

An apple pie without a lot of butter and starch in the filling. You'll really taste the apples in this one.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Apple Pie
Prep Time 3 hours
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 3 hours 45 minutes
Servings 8
Author Anna
Cost 5

Ingredients

Crust:

  • 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (340 grams)
  • ¼ teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 16 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into chunks (230 grams)
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar regular or butter flavored non-hydrogenated
  • 8 tablespoons of ice cold water plus more if needed

Filling:

  • 2 ½ pounds apples, mix of Honeycrisp and Granny Smith Can vary the Honeycrisps, but keep the GS!
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • teaspoon kosher salt
  • ¼ cup cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons heavy cream for brushing, and coarse sugar (opt.)

Instructions

  • Combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a food processor and pulse to mix. Add half of the butter and pulse until mixture is coarse. Add remaining butter and pulse until mixture is coarse, but still has some pea size chunks of butter.
  • Mix vinegar with the water and add ⅓ cup to processor. Pulse and test to see if mixture holds together when you pinch it. Continue adding liquid 1 tablespoon at a time and pulsing until dough holds together just when pinched. Empty it onto a pastry mat and shape into a large mass. Note: If you find your mixture is still too crumbly to form a mass, go ahead and sprinkle a little more water on it. Mash it down, fold it over on itself and continue doing this until it holds together. Cut in half and shape into two disks. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill until ready to use (at least one hour).
  • Peel, core and cut the apples into fairly thin slices.
  • In a large mixing bowl or a roasting pan, toss the apples with lemon juice, cinnamon, sugars, and salt. Let the apples sit, covered, for an 1 ½ hours. While the apples sit, you can start the process of preparing the pie plate.
  • On a floured surface, roll out one disc to make a 12 inch circle. Place in the bottom of a deep dish 9” deep dish pie plate. Don’t crimp or press down the edges quite yet. Chill dough-lined pie plate while you prepare the apples.
  • One your crust is lined and your apples have sat for at least an hour, drain apple liquid into a saucepan, holding back the apple slices. You should get between ½ cup and ¾ cup liquid.
  • Boil the liquid for about 5 minutes to reduce slightly. If you had ½ cup of juice, it should reduce to ⅓ cup. If you had more like ⅔ cup, you'll have around ½ cup. It will thicken just slightly and be more like a syrup.
  • Toss the apples with the cornstarch, then pour the syrup over the apples. Transfer the apple mixture to the dough lined pie dish.
  • Roll the second section of pie dough out to a large circle on a lightly floured surface and cut it into 1 inch strips. Arrange the strips in a lattice across the top of the pie.
  • Brush with heavy cream and sprinkle with sparkling sugar.
  • Set pie on a rimmed baking sheet to catch drips and bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 and bake another 45-50 minutes or until pastry is flaky and cooked through. Note: If your crust has already browned after first 20-30 minutes, lay a sheet of foil over it.
  • Remove pie from the oven and let cool for at least two hours before cutting and serving.

Notes

These days I usually make the crust without a food processor. One trick is to shred the cold butter with a hand held grater. If you shred the butter, you won't have to work the flour/fat mixture very much to get it to the coarse stage. I typically shred the butter, tossing flour over it as I shred, then add the shortening, then work it all together gently with my fingers.