Pie, Pie, Apple Pie

Fall is here and, to me, that means more cooking than usual, and making exclamations of joy whenever I see an apple or a pumpkin. In accordance with autumn spirit, the apple tree in the back of my house, which did not produce at all last year, was graced with a few apples this season, just enough to make a pie.

Now I have to explain a little bit about how I feel about pie.

Pie is magic.

Being initiated into the art of it's creation is a right of passage. Practices of making pie, especially pie crust, vary widely, but once one's method of pie making has been perfected, innovations in pie making technique are met with skepticism and/or outright hostility.

Consider this: I am usually mild mannered and polite when meeting new people, and I am not given to bouts of rude obstinacy. Unless you insult my pie. I found this out during a Pinot Noir tasting party, where I was explaining my pie crust technique to a culinary minded friend. Another guest at the party overheard and made the mistake of telling me that my described pie crust was subpar because it was made with only butter and not shortening.

I rolled my eyes. "Butter is better because it provide superior taste and browning. Shorting give a great texture, but it just doesn't taste as good." I told him. He shook is head patronizingly. "My grandmother," he intoned, "makes the best pie crust. And has won numerous state pie competitions with her recipe. So her pie crust is better than yours."

"Don't talk to me about pie crust that you don't even make when you haven't EVEN TASTED MY PIE CRUST!" I shouted. And granted, I should have just let his comments slide, but I had had three glasses of wine and this was PIE CRUST, man. This was personal.

He tried to argue it with me a little longer, but I refused to back down. Finally I glared at him until he looked away. We didn't speak the rest of the night. Take that, pie insulter!


Ok, down to business. I did try a slightly new variation on my crust when I made my apple pie last week. I used a slightly higher ratio of butter to flour and I really liked the results. I've never made a more flaky crust. The extra butter idea came from the gal who does the smittenkitchen blog. Here's her recipe with my tweakings:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces, 16 tablespoons or 1 cup) unsalted butter, very cold

Whisk the flour and salt together in a chilled bowl and then cut in the butter with a chilled pastry cutter. Do NOT use a food processor. If at any point while you're working in the butter it starts to feel warm or greasy, stash it in the freezer for a few minutes. You want it to stay as cold as possible during the whole process. Once the butter is in little crumbs in the flour (with some big crumbs left), add cold water, one tablespoon at a time until the dough just comes together. Stash in the fridge or freezer until the dough is firm and you're ready to roll it out.

It really helps to have a chilled marble pastry board to roll the dough out on, but if you don't have one just use the counter and try to work quickly. The colder the dough stays, the flakier it will be in the end.

Roll out the bottom crust, line your pie pan with it and fill with a mixture of peeled sliced apples, cinnamon, vanilla, a dash nutmeg and sugar to taste. Dot the filling with some extra butter. Roll out the top crust, lay it over the filling and crimp the edges to seal. Cut some holes for steam to escape (or use a heart shaped cookie cutter when you roll the top crust out if Martha Stewart inexplicable takes possession of your soul, the way she does with mine). This pie crust recipe makes more than enough for 9 in pie. I wrapped the extra dough in plastic wrap and stuck it in the freezer for a rainy day.


Bake pie at 400 degrees for twenty minutes, then lower the heat to 350 and bake for another 40 to 50 minutes, until pie is brown and your neighbors start dropping by to investigate what smells so good.

Feed the pie to good friends and enjoy the tuning of the seasons. Winter will be here before we know it!