My friend Jenny and I got a little obsessed with Pushing Daises over our last semester of school. Now that we are free of that time suck, we've devoted ourselves to making pies. The real goal in all this has been to recreate the apple pie that Chuck sends to her aunts. A cheese is always involved, since Chuck's aunts love cheese. We tried the cheese grated on top version, which, while delicious, did not see up to the PieMaker's standards. We also branched out to non-apple pies (because seriously, it's just as easy to bake one as two). Most recently, this effort turned out the almond, pear tart.
(Earlier (and picture-less) was a creme fraiche peach pie that was AMAZING.)
However, the crowning glory of the weekend was the apple pie with gruyere baked into the crust. A small amount of cheese was mixed with the flour before combining with butter and water (much to my surprise, I'm finding that a pastry blender really does do an excellent job at pie making (above the food processor!) -- leaving more substantial chunks of butter to make a more delicious baked pie crust).
The recipe, recreated here from a combination of SK's apple pie making and this blogger's cheesey instructions (I must disagree with and reject his lard-related instructions.)
Crust:
Makes one double-crusted 9-10 inch pie.
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp. sugar
20 tbsp. cold, unsalted butter
2 oz. Gruyère, grated
Icewater (get a class, put some water in, add ice. Ready your tablespoon.)
Mix flour, salt, sugar and Gruyere in a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until "the size of peas."
Sprinkle ice water over flour in increments of one tablespoon, toss with fork after each addition. When dough clumps together when squeezed in your palm (about 6-7 tbsp is generally the right amount), gather dough together into two disks, one slightly larger than the other, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours.
Pie:
3 lbs of apples. We used half granny smith and half mcintosh, for what I felt was a perfect level of tart+sweet.
2 lemons. (None of this one tablespoon nonsense. TART!)
6 tbls cornstarch (flour is also an option, but I really like what the cornstarch did in this version)
1/2 cup sugar
Peal and core apples, then thinly slice. Combine in a bowl with other ingredients.
Once pie dough is chilled, roll out the larger disk until it fits a 9 in pie pan (or 9 in springform cake pan, if that is all you have at hand.) Gently settle pie dough into pan (I prefer the fold into quarters method myself.) Pour apple mixture into the prepared pie pan, and roll out second disk of dough. Place on top of apples, and seal edges of pie dough together.
You can brush with egg at this point, though I never do. Place in oven pre-heated to 375F, and cook for at least 50 minutes. I like my apples mushy and my crust crisp, so I would tend to go over this time limit myself, especially if you have a more gentle oven.
Cool for about 20, if you want the pie to stay pie-like, or cut immediately and glory in the deliciousness.
Type rest of the post here
3 comments:
This post reminds me that I have a peach pie to post. It also reminds me of the time when you (and several other readers of this blog) mocked me for saying that granola and cheddar cheese would taste good together. You were grossed out by that, yet this pie seems to be in the same vein. Also, it is BEAUTIFUL and delicious looking. I never make apple pie because, even though my mom taught me how to do a lattice crust, I never liked how it tasted. I will have to give this a try.
Oh man, I had forgotten about cheddar cheese + granola! That still doesn't sound appetizing, but I see your point. However, I think a major problem remains before the cheese+granola market takes off--physically, there's no good way to combine those two foods. Cheddar wrapped around granola? Melted cheese with granola added? These do not seem like people food.
But yes, apple pie is delicious and you should make some!
How well does apple pie ship to CT?
I'm still not jumping on the cheese plus granola train, but have long been willing to admit that I enjoy potato chips with fruit yogurt. So maybe it's the same idea.
In other apple pie news, my mom and Thomas went apple picking and then made two pies (in Thomas's words) "one for grandma and grandpa and me, and one for mommy and daddy and me." Clearly, he's been raised well.
Post a Comment