Guess who’s baking again? And for Pi Day!
Difficulty: Medium, 3-4 hours, does like, 8 hearty slices? I guess?
1/4 cups water, plus about 10 tbsp of water
First let’s start with the crust. Cut up your 2/3 cups of butter into slices, and combine with the two cups of flour. You want to combine it until it resembles coarse crumbs.
Slow add a tablespoon or two of water at a time, and combine with a fork. When it starts looking like a shaggy dough. Then use your hands to make it into a ball.
Put it into a fridge for later. Now, peel, core, and slice up your apples. The number of apples will depend if you have giant apples like I somehow got.
Squeeze the lemon on to the apple slices and give it a mix. This will help prevent browning. Also flavor.
Melt the 2 tbsp of butter in a large saucepan on low. Put in your brown sugar, regular sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cornstarch, and your 1/4 cup of water. Stir until everything is melted.
Put your apple slices in and coat them in the sauce. Let them cook down for a bit on the low heat, stirring occasionally. They will lose liquid as you do this. Then turn off the heat.
Okay back to the crust. Flour your surface and rolling pin, and take a little more than half of the dough. Roll it out to slightly bigger than your 13″ pie pan.
Roll it onto the rolling pin, and then unroll it onto the pie pan. Gently work it into the pan, and patch up any tears or missing bits.
I like to trim off excess now, simply because I find it easier to manage, but honestly, right now, it’s optional. Make sure not to trim off too much if you do.
Fill with the apples. Make sure they aren’t too wet. Take your time to arrange them.
Take the rest of your pie crust dough and roll it out to the thickness of the rest of the crust. Cut it into strips.
Okay so now we’re gonna weave the strips on the top of the pie. I like to lay a few down one way, then pull back every other one and lay down a new strip, going perpendicular.
OKAY ALMOST DONE preheat your oven to 425F. Take a fork and crimp the strips to the edge. Normally, you wouldn’t do the first trim to make this easier, but frankly, I find it just as easy. Then trim the excess from the strips. Crack an egg in a bowl and scramble it. Take a pastry brush and brush on the egg wash on the weaving.
Put that sucker in the oven for 15 minutes. Once 15 minutes is up, reduce the heat to 350F and bake for 35 minutes.
That was a long one, but man it’s worth it. It’s not too sweet and very delicious. Warm it in the microwave and/or serve with ice cream!
