Apple

I have officially begun. Today I baked the very first pie in my cookbook, apple pie. I've actually used this recipe quite a bit so it wasn't so very different from all the other times I've made it... In any case this pie is my baseline. Hopefully by the end of this ELI my apple pies will be much better. (There is diffidently room for improvement.) Because this is the first time I've ever blogged about one of my pies I'll go ahead and describe each step of the crust and filling process. So on to the baking details...

For whenever I'm cooking I have several rules that must always be followed. I only have three so far but I dare say I'll think of more at some point in time.

1)The kitchen must be SPOTLESS before I touch a single ingredient.
2)I have to read the recipe all the way through and set out all my ingredients before beginning.
3)When I'm done the kitchen must be as spotless as when I started.

So there are my rules to live by. In accordance with rule number one I started with an absolutely spotless kitchen. Then I read through the entire pie crust recipe and readied my ingredients. (I always make the pie crust first, clean the kitchen again, and then move on to the filling. Because I do it in two seperate sections like this I don't worry about filling ingredients at all until after my crust(s) are made. If I don't have the ingredients I need for the filling I can always save the crust for another day.) Step one of making a pie crust: the flour, sugar, and salt are measured into a bowl and mixed together.

(Lovely isn't it?) Well then next comes the butter. It's important that the butter is cold (when I get around to talking about the science aspects of pie crusts I'll explain that) so I use frozen butter and cut it into small cubes.

Then comes the part where the butter is added to the flour mixture. It's important to cut the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal with butter pieces no larger than small peas. I've always done this by hand with a pastry cutter. Another option (which I might want to try next time) is using a stand mixer.

I spent a long time cutting the butter into the flour; but I'm still not sure all my butter pieces were quite small enough. (The option of using a mixer is looking very appealing.) Next cold water is added and a fork is used to toss the mixture until the dough pulls together.

Once the dough pulls together the recipe says to "transfer the dough to a work surface and pat the dough into a ball." My problem is that a little bit of patting just isn't enough to get my dough into a ball. Instead I press the dough together into several little balls and then combine them while still in the bowl. I might be over-handling the dough which would make for a tougher crust... something to look into. In any case I do end up with a lovely ball of dough which I then split into two smaller balls (one for the bottom and one for the top of the pie).

Next the dough is rolled out and made into a lovely, flat, circular crust. For some reason today I was having quite a bit of trouble with this step. My dough kept on tearing (despite the fact that I was careful to keep my rolling pin floured) and was generally being stubborn. In then end however I did manage to get a nice crust in my pie pan.

I set aside the crusts in the refrigerator, cleaned up the kitchen, and then moved on to the filling. Apple pie filling is REALLY simple. First off sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt are mixed in a small bowl.

Then it's time to ready the apples. Every time I've made apple pie in the past I've used this little device we have that peels the apple for you and then cuts them into a lovely ringlet while avoiding the core entirely. It's pretty much amazing. On actually reading the recipe however (see, I followed rule number two) I discovered that actually the apples are supposed to be peeled, halved, cored, and then cut into 1/2 inch thick slices. The lovely ringlets that our nifty device creates are NOT 1/2 an inch. I wanted to ignore that detail and go on using my beloved device (I really should find out what it's actually called). My mother didn't agree. She wanted me to follow the recipe and see how it turned out done the way it was meant to be. Over time I have learned that it's generally a good idea to listen to my mother. I obeyed the recipe. Since I wasn't using my beloved device I had to learn to peel the apples with a knife. (No I have never peeled apples my hand before.) In the end I got pretty good at it. With one apple I came SO CLOSE to having just one continuous strand of peel. The important thing is that I followed instructions and peeled, cored, and sliced my apples.

Once the apples are ready, the sugar mixture is sprinkled over them; and then they are tossed to get the sugar to coat everything evenly. Once this is done the apples are piled into dough-lined pan.

At this point what I SHOULD have done is dot the apples with butter. Unfortunately I forgot about that step. (If I had a penny for every time I've forgotten to dot my filling with butter I'd be rich... or at least have a lot of pennies.) Instead, I just went straight to putting the top crust on the pie and crimping the edges. Fortunately an apple pie needs slits at the top to allow steam to escape from the pie during the cooking process. I cut my slits and then just slipped a little butter in through each of them. Now I did have one major issue with putting the top crust on my pie. After I had finished rolling out my pie crusts I put them directly into the refrigerator. Big mistake. Because of this my top crust was stiff when I went to put it on my pie. That made things... difficult. Next time I'll just keep my crusts in a cool spot until I'm ready for them. Here's what my pie looked like before I put it in the oven...

An hour later and my pie came out looking like this...

As you might notice the top of the pie looks a little pale. I probably should have let it bake for another 5-10 minutes. This pie is nowhere close to perfect; but I've figured out a few things I can fix! Next time I'm going to try using a mixer for my dough; that should make things go faster. I also know that the crusts should NOT be put in the refrigerator while I'm working on my filling. I have a new rule to add to my list:

4)Read the recipe AGAIN before putting the top crust on the pie to make sure no ingredients have been forgotten.

Hopefully that will take care of my issue with forgetting the butter. Something else I'd like to work on is the overall appearance of my pies. There are TONS of different ways to seal the edges of a pie. I always use a fork to crimp my edges because that's the the only way I know how to do it. Throughout this ELI I'd like to learn some more methods. Despite my mistakes the pie did taste delicious (my family ate it after dinner). This is where I'm starting! Hopefully by the end I will have improved exponentially.