‘POISONED’ APPLE PIE

For years I have been eating frozen or pre-made apple pie. Then I spent one long weekend binge watching The Great British Baking Show and was challenged, by my own sense of ‘doing stuff’, to make my favorite desert from scratch. The first time I tried I followed one recipe all the way through. It was awful. The pie was a disaster and I was deeply disappointed in a food blogger I thought I could trust.

What you see bellow is actually MY Recipe, which I mentioned in my story: ‘Why I Ate the Poisoned Apple’. It’s cobbled together from different sources. (My boyfriend was “forced” to try at least 3 variations on this recipe.) I have taken things like a single egg yolk from the great Mary Berry, and combined other things to my personal taste. The spices listed at the end are to my taste, go buck wild and change up the amounts to make it your own.

“Poisoned” Apple Pie

Notes:

• This dough will be enough to make a double crust pie, but we aren’t going that direction so you can choose to double the filling and topping portion to end up with TWO, yes two, fantastic pies!
• This makes enough for a 9 inch pie, but a 10 inch would work fine as well, the filling might just not sit as high.
• In the summer the dough can be difficult to work with due to humidity. Make sure it is very cold and that you work quickly, using lots of flour.

Ingredients:

Crust

6 ½ oz all purpose flour

6 ½ oz  pastry flour

2 TBSP of sugar

1 tsp. Salt

2 ½ sticks of COLD unsalted butter

¼ cup water

¼ cup vodka

1 egg yolk

2 T. apple cider vinegar

Filling

1 lb Granny Smith Apples

1 lb Honey Crisp Apples

¼ cup  flour

3 T (or more to taste) bourbon (Author recommends Knob Creek Smoked Maple, which is technically a whiskey but is very very tasty)

2 tsp. cinnamon

Topping

1/3 cup sugar

3/4 brown sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. allspice

1/4 tsp. Ginger

1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

2 to 3 pinces of anise (ground or seeds)

Method:

Day 1: Make a Sleeping Beauty’s Crust

1. Combine water, vodka, and apple cider vinegar in a bowl and place in freezer. Put the butter in there too.
2. Weigh out flour and place in food processor or mixer. Add sugar and salt and give it a pulse or spin.
3. Take the butter out of the freezer and cube it. Throw it in with the flour mixer. Pulse until the mixture reminds you of the quicksand that tried to kill Aladdin.
4. Pour mixture into a bowl. Add egg yolk and some of the water-vodka mixture. Combine with your hands. Add the rest of the water, possibly more as needed, until a shaggy dough forms. It should almost look like real dough but be lumpy and not the best at sticking together.
5. Roll that ugly girl up as best you can and cover her lightly in flour. Cover her in cling film and put her in the fridge for a nice long nap overnight. She needs her beauty rest. Only evil queens make dough and pies on the same day.

Day 2: Snow White’s Poisoned Apples & Into the Oven

1. Peel, core, and slice all the apples thinly. Doing this part while watching a classic fairy tale and signing along with it is highly recommended by the author. Just don’t try to snapchat with apple juice fingers.
2. Place apple slices in a bowl and add flour, cinnamon, and bourbon. Mix.
3. Combine topping ingredients in a bowl (for best results butter should be slightly warm) It will be sticky and crumbly when mixed.
4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
5. Cover bowl in cling film to let those apples really soak up that poison.
6. Clean and dry a flat surface in the kitchen
7. Flour it that table like you have a grudge against it
8. Tell sleeping beauty dough it’s time to get up and pull her out of the fridge. Cut your dough in half. Dust both with flour! (extremely important for your sanity)
9. Roll out half of the dough, dusting and turning as you go. The rolled out dough should be a little bit wider than your 9 inch pie pan.
10. Cover pie pan in rolled out dough and press down to fill the edges. Don’t stretch. Be kind to Sleeping Beauty.

EXTRA CREDIT STEP: Roll out the remaining dough and cut into shapes with pie cutters or cookie cutters. Place to the side for now.

1. Fill pie with apples in overlapping circles, pressing around so they get really tightly squished in there.
2. Cover the apples in the crumble topping mixture, spreading it around.
3. Pinch the edges of the crust up over the side of the pie pan.

EXTRA CREDIT STEP 2: Take the cut out shapes and brush with 1 beaten egg. Place the shapes around the edges of the pie and in the topping to create a design of your choice.

1. Place in oven and back for 45 to 60 minutes, possibly longer depending on your oven. The pie should be bubbling like the Evil Queen’s cauldron and the topping will be a nice deep brown.
2. Remove from oven. Place on a cooling rack or mat. Leave it alone for a few hours unless you want to remove all the skin from inside your mouth.
3. Serve with ice cream if desired.

Makes one 9 inch pie, with extra dough, unless you decorate the crust.