I love to have warm apple pie topped with Vanilla ice cream (or frozen yogurt now days). I have been savoring this apple pie every night since I baked them. The first day when I baked it I wanted to make it as the mini apple pies. For some reason ( I came to know the reason later, thanks to Swathi for her suggestions), my pie did not retain its shape and I could not take it off the muffin tin in one piece. They tasted great and more than half of them disappeared right away. I still could not get a picture worthy pie (that is as important as a great tasting pie, right?). So, I made it as a whole pie the next day after finding out the reason for my breaking apart pie and it was a hit, taste wise and appearance wise.
Granny smith is the most preferred apple for baking apple pies, since they have low moisture content. I had used an assortment of apples and hence I had more moisture in my filling. So the mini pies, I had made kept falling apart. To correct my problem, Swathi suggested that I use more flour when making my filling. So I increased the flour and it worked like charm. Also I would suggest that if you are making mini pies, grease the muffin tins at least around the edges to release the pies easily. My kids, husband and I enjoyed this warm pie with ice-cream as our evening snack over the weekend. Hence, I am sending this recipe over to my day 2 of evening snacks for Blogging marathon. Preparation time – 20 mins plus about an hour to chill the dough Cooking time – 50 – 60 mins Difficulty level – medium
Ingredients to make Apple Pie – (Makes 1 9 ½ inch pie)
For crust –
All purpose flour – 1 ¾ cup / 245 g Salt – ¼ teaspoon / 2 g Sugar – 1 tablespoon / 15 g Chilled butter – ¾ cup / 157 g Ice cold water – 3-5 tbsp
For the filling –
Apples – 4 (large) Lemon juice – 1 tbsp Brown sugar – 3 tbsp White sugar – 3 tbsp Cinnamon – 1 tsp Ground ginger – ¼ tsp Nutmeg – ¼ tsp All spice – ¼ tsp Salt – ⅛ tsp Corn starch or all purpose flour – 1 tablespoon – 3 tablespoon (depending on the kind of apple) Butter – 1 tbsp
To make the top glaze/wash -
Milk – 2 tbsp Granulated sugar – 1 tbsp
Procedure to make Apple Pie –
To make the crust
In a large bowl, mix the all purpose flour, sugar and salt. To this add small bits of chilled butter. I weighed both my flour and butter instead of measuring it.
Using a pastry blender or a fork, work the flour and the butter until it starts resembling crumbs.
Now slowly add about a tablespoon at a time of ice cold water into the mixture and make dough. I needed about 3 tablespoon of water to make my dough. Depending upon your dough consistency careful add one tablespoon of water at a time and form a soft dough.
Divide the dough into 2 equal parts and wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for about an hour. At this stage you could also freeze the dough for about a month.
Make the filling –
Peel, core and cut the apples into small pieces. To this add the rest of the ingredients (except the butter) and mix well. Depending upon the kind of apple, use either 1 tablespoon or more of flour. I used about 3 tablespoon of flour for my filling and it was perfect. Leave this mixture aside for about an hour.
At the end of the hour, you would notice that the apples have let out moisture. Collect this in a bowl and add the 1 tablespoon butter and microwave on high for 2 minutes. The liquid would have reduced by this process and would appear syrupy.
Pour this syrup back into the apple mixture and mix.
Assembly –
Take one of the dough out and in between two layer of parchment roll it out into a thin circle. The circle should be larger than your pie plate and should be enough to cover the base of the pie pan and also come to the top. I measure about 12 inches on all sides and rolled it out. Alternatively you could also flour the surface and roll it without the parchment.
Now slowly wrap the trolled out dough onto the rolling pin and lay it on the pie pan. Make sure that you press down the dough on the pie pan to cover the entire pan and you should have the dough hanging in the top.
Now fill the pan with the apple mixture. Roll out the other half of the dough the exact same way and lay it on top of the apples.
Pinch the seams of the dough attaching the bottom layer and top layer. At this stage you could also make some decorative trims to the pie. I used my thumb as the guide line and pinched dough at equal intervals to get a pattern.
Now make steam vents on the top layer. Make sure to vent it out to prevent any accidents in the oven. You could also get creative here and make patterns. Brush the top of the pie with milk and sprinkle the granulated sugar.
Bake in a preheated 375 F oven for about 50-60 mins. Mine took about 55 mins to form a golden brown crust and a bubbling filling. I also covered the edges of the crust with aluminum foil half way through the baking process to prevent over browning.
Transfer the pie pan on to a cooling rack and let it cool entirely before slicing.
Notes and observations –
Adjust the flour quantity in the filling based on the kind of apple you are using. If using granny smith or any other less juicier firm variety use about 1 tbsp. For the juicier variety of apples, use about 3 tbsp. Make sure to seal the edges of the pie well. This will avoid any leaking of the juices in-between the pie and the pan. Remember to vent the top of the pie for steam to escape. You might have to cover the rim/edges of the pie with a aluminum foil half way into baking to prevent the crust from over browning. Allow the pie to cool entirely before slicing. The filling is still juicier when warm and it thickens as the pie cools.
