Homemade Apple Pie (Checkout my Secret Ingredient)

One of the items on my Fall bucket list was to make an Apple Pie completely from scratch. Which I did yesterday! And my house smelled amazing.

Okay - Cook's Illustrated published a pie dough tutorial and they used Vodka in the pie dough recipe. Tons of blogging bakers have raved about this recipe. Now I don't mean to brag but I make an awesome pie dough. I can tell right away if the pie dough is going to be a little tough or perfectly flakey. A great pie starts with a wonderful crust.

So I decided to try the Vodka recipe. If you make a lot of dough - I must tell you that this is a very wet dough. But once you chill the dough it rolls out perfectly.

Perfect Pie Dough (by Cook's Illustrated)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 sticks unsalted cold butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening (chilled)

1/4 cup cold Vodka

1/4 cup cold water

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse 1 1/2 cups flour, salt and sugar until combined. Add butter and shortening and process until clumps looking like cottage cheese start to form.  This takes about 15 seconds.

Add the remaining flour and pulse 4 - 6 times until the mixture has been broken up.

Place the mixture into another bowl and add the Vodka and water.

With a rubber spatula mix by folding liquid into the dough. Press down and fold the liquid into the dough.

Divide the dough into two even balls. Wrap them in plastic and pat until they form a disk. Refrigerate for at least 45 minutes.

Makes dough for one double crust pie.


Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups mixed apples, peeled cored and chopped into small pieces

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out one of the disks of dough on a lightly floured surface to about 1/8-inch thick. Transfer the dough to a 9-inch pie pan. Set aside in the refrigerator. Roll the remaining dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Set aside on a parchment paper lined baking sheet in the refrigerator.

Toss the chopped apples, flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and lemon juice.

Pour the apple mixture into the prepared pie pan.

Then top with the remaining dough. Trim and crimp the edges with a fork. Make some cuts so that the steam can escape.

I saw a pinterest post where they wrote Apple Pie with little letters. I have little letters!

I bought them at Williams Sonoma. They are so fun and use them all the time.

Now I was in a quandary.  Should I use a egg wash over the crust or sprinkle with sugar? I decided to do both!

Bake on a tinfoil lined baking sheet until the fruit bubbles and the crust is golden brown. This should take between 50 to 60 minutes.

I check my pie at around 30 to 35 minutes. If the edges of the pie seem like they are getting a little brown - I wrap the edges in foil and continue the baking process.

Transfer your pie to a wire rack to cool. Your house will smell wonderful! Serve with vanilla ice cream, homemade whipped cream or cheese.

Do you feel like Martha Stewart?