Alright, I won’t annoy you with the explanation of my apple pie recipe first. The recipe is immediately below. However, some of the information in the paragraphs preceding the recipe are important to the method of cooking it. Either go it alone with my recipe OR read what I’ve written before you attempt to cook it. Good luck and enjoy.
Ingredients
| Quantity | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 5 | Medium-sized apples Choose an apple based on the taste profile you want (sweet, sour, bold) |
| 1/2 tablespoon | Flour For the filling |
| 2 tablespoons | Honey It's OK not to include this |
| 3/4 cup | Brown sugar |
| 1/4 cup | White, granulated sugar |
| 2 teaspoons | Cinnamon For the cinnamon haters, it's OK not to include this |
| 2 | Pie crusts Either premade, homemade, or a mix. Have enough to make two pie crusts. |
| 1 tablespoon | Lemon juice |
| 2 tablespoons | Butter Salted or unsalted, you choose |
| 1 tablespoon | Flour For working with the pie crust. |
| A pinch | Salt |
| 1 | Egg |
| 20 ml | Milk |
Kitchen Items Needed
| Quantity | Tool/Item |
|---|---|
| 1 | 9 inch pie pan |
| 1 | Peeler1 |
Instructions
Apple Pie Filling
- Wash and peel the apples.
- Core the apples, discarding the cores.
- Cut the apples into long, thin slices.
- Add all of the apple slices into your pot and stir in the lemon juice. The lemon juice helps prevent the apples from browning too quickly while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
- Add the sugars (both brown and white) and the butter to the pot and turn on your stove top to medium heat.
- While mixing, add the flour, cinnamon, and your pinch of salt.
- Once everything is mixed well, swirl in your honey and stir in some more.
- For about 8-10 minutes, let the filling simmer, frequently stirring to combine everything. Reduce the juices as described in the “Start with the Filling” section above. You’re looking for a consistency of syrup rather than water.
- Note: This isn’t precise timing. If you’ve made it to 10 minutes and the consistency is still watery, then keep simmering. Don’t do the following things:
- Don’t turn up the heat. This poses danger to your flavor because you might start to burn the ingredients.
- Don’t add more sugar or any other ingredient to try and make it a syrup consistency faster.
- Don’t get antsy. This might take some time. Getting impatient will lead you to making bad decisions! Beyond making apple pie, that’s an important life lesson!
- Note: This isn’t precise timing. If you’ve made it to 10 minutes and the consistency is still watery, then keep simmering. Don’t do the following things:
- Once you have completed the simmer and you have great smelling apple pie filling, put a lid on it! Set it aside and move on to the crust. (Taste test optional).
Crust
Pre-made Refrigerated Pie Sheets
- Open and prep the pie sheet according to the box instructions.
- On a lightly floured surface, place the pie sheet and the spread a light layer of flour evenly over the top.
- Roll out the sheet just enough to fit into the pan (around 10 inches in radius).
- Roll out another sheet to the same size.
- Continue down to pie crust continuation
Just-add-water Pie Crust Mix
- If your box contains enough pie crust mix for two pie crusts, do the entire box at one time instead of trying to split it evenly.
- Prepare the mix as precisely as you can muster. Pie crust mix tends to take a while to stir together so from here on out, be patient.
- Once the water and dry mix are combined, use a silicone spatula (I prefer a silicone spatula over a wooden spoon due to the silicone being a little more stick resistant), to begin mixing the ingredients togethers.
- Once a solid ball is formed, with one finger, touch the mix. If the mix sticks to your finger with residual when you pull away, dust the ball with a little flour.
- On a lightly floured surface, move the ball from the bowl you have used to prepare the mix by rolling it out with your spatula.
- Dust your hands with a little flour.
- Push into the ball with your hands and flatten it out as best you can before you move to the roller.
- Once flat, if it’s still sticky, lightly dust with more flour and also dust your roller.
- Roll out until you have enough to fit two 9 inch pans (not that we are filling two pans but rather one for the bottom crust and one for the top)
- Continue down to pie crust continuation
Handmade Crust
I’ve tried handmade crust once and this is where these directions get a little incomplete. There are plenty of instructions out there on how to make pie crust from scratch so use one of those sources. The last time I hand made crust was using the All Butter Pie Crust recipe from SallysBakingAddiction.com. I decided to go with this recipe because other recipes called for shortening; at that time, I had none. This was the best recipe I could find that used butter as the alternative to shortening. You are free to use whatever recipe you would like as long as you make enough for two pie sheets that will fit a 9 inch pan.
Pie Crust Continuation
At this point, you should have two pie crusts big enough for a 9 inch pan.
- Time to preheat. We’re gonna be baking this for about 40 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius. On a Japanese oven, you typically set both the time and the temperature. If this isn’t the case for your oven, just set it to 190 degrees Celsius (375 degrees Fahrenheit).
- To make for easier serving and clean up, I like to lightly spray my pan with PAM canola oil. This goes a long way during cleanup because nothing ends up stuck to the sides.
- In order to lay the sheet nicely inside the pan, I typically fold mine in half over my rolling pin and carefully pick it up and lay it down gently like you are putting a baby to sleep.
- Cut the pie sheet with a knife to about an inch away from the lip of the pan.
- Fluting is optional but it does make it look nice. It also kind of provides a little more structural support for the filling once the pie is fully baked.
- Once the first layer is in, you have two options:
- Upon the oven being preheated, bake the bottom crust for about 7 minutes. This hardens the crust a little and you’ll find your crust is more crunchy on the bottom as well as the top when the full pie comes out.
- Throw the first layer into the refrigerator for the remainder of the preheat. It leaves the crust not as crunchy but still cooked once the entire pie is baked. If you aren’t such a big fan of crunchy crust, do this.
- Take the pie pan out of either the oven or the refrigerator.
- Check the filling once more to ensure it is a good consistency. If so, slowly and evenly pour it over the first layer of crust. Once it’s all in, shake it gently to get a nice even layer of filling.
Topping It Off and Baking the Pie
There are many ways to top the pie. You can lay a solid pie sheet over the filling. You can weave the pie sheet from strips cut out with a pizza roller. You can add designs or a braid. It’s all up to you. I’m more targeting this for beginners so I’ll cover the easiest method I think which is just a solid pie sheet over the pie filling.
- In the same way you picked up the sheet with the first, lay the top layer of crust over the filling. Be careful not to drag the sheet on the filling.
- Again cut the sheet about an inch away from the lip of the pan.
- If you fluted, flute the top layer along with the bottom layer. Otherwise, tuck the sheet edges in with the first layer. Don’t get frustrated. This takes practice.
- Cut a plus (+) shape into the center of the sheet but leave the center of the plus in tact.
- Beat your egg thoroughly and then add in the milk to make the egg wash.
- Brush the egg wash over the top sheet.
- Place the pie pan in the oven. If you have the ability to place your pie on a middle rack within the center of your oven, do that.
- Set the timer for 40 minutes and take this time to clean up your mess.
- Once the timer is complete, check the pie. The top should be browned, and the pie filling should have oozed quite a bit. If this isn’t the case, try another 5 minutes at the same temperature. Be careful and don’t burn your pie. During this 5 minute extra, be sure to check frequently to make sure you haven’t overdone it.
- Once you’re confident the pie is well and cooked, remove it from the oven to a wire rack for it to cool for about 30 minutes to an hour.
I Freaking Love Apple Pie
Living in Japan, I don’t often get the taste of home. It’s usually up to me to provide any desired comfort food so I’ve had to venture in to cooking to satisfy those cravings. Apple pie is one of my all-time favorite desserts. It really hits my nostalgia button. I wish I could make one everyday though I’m pretty sure I would need to go pants shopping far too often.
I’ve made apple pie several times. The first time I attempted, it was a disaster. I used far too many apples, overcooked the pie, and did not by any means reduce the liquid in the filling enough. I ended up with a super crisp top crust with a runny filling and uncooked undercrust. I smashed it all up into a pan and told my friends I had made apple cobbler. Luckily they bought that lie.
After several attempts, I believe I improved my ability to make pies, especially apple. While I wouldn’t say this recipe is perfect, it is perfect for me. Without further delay, I give you my Just An Apple Pie Recipe
Start with the Filling
Pie crust is good but the money is made in the core of the pie, where that delicious, gooey apple pie filling is. I don’t like to oversweeten my filling so I feel the amount of sugar I have included in my recipe is perfect. You may find that five apples just isn’t enough for you. In that case, add one more apple but I would not increase the amount of each type of sugar (brown and white) by more than 2 tablespoons per and I would leave everything else as is. Remember, we want a little sweet flavor with our apple filling, not a little apple flavor with our sweet filling.
When you have finally added everything to the pot and start to slowly melt everything together, you’ll notice it gets a little soupy. That’s OK. That’s just the apples sweating, the water mixing in, and the sugars starting to melt. Make sure to reduce the liquid down until its more of a syrup consistency rather than a watery consistency. To reduce liquid before heating, peel the apples and slice them as usual. Place them in a colander above a large bowl and put them somewhere at room temperature for about 20-30 minutes. If all goes well, the apples should sweat themselves out a little bit.
A good test that I use to determine for if the filling is reduced is, while stirring, I run my spatula through the middle of the apples like you would imagine Moses parting the sea. If the liquid immediately runs to the center of the split, it’s still needs to be reduced. However, if it oozes slowly to the center, it’s probably time to cut the heat.
Since I can set apple pie filling aside for a bit, I like to make that first. I keep it warm while I’m working on the pie crust, so I put a lid on mine after I’m done reducing the juices. This also prevents stuff from accidentally falling in.
The Crust!
I’ve made crust from scratch. I’ve used dry crust mix (just add water type). I’ve used pre-made refrigerated pie sheets. By far, the easiest to work with is the pre-made refrigerated pie sheets. Buy them, thaw them, lay them out where you are going to roll them on a floured surface, spread some flour on top, and go to work. There’s no mixing, no miscalculating water amounts, and very little chance to mess it up. The most recent apple pie I made (the one shown in the picture) was made from dry mix. I used to find this the most tedious, even after handmade pie crust. This time however, instead of trying to halve the mix and add the appropriate amount of water, I made the entire box and used the leftover for other fun things.
If you’re interested in a more crustier crust, what you can do is preheat the oven in advance of preparing the raw pie crust and then, once the first layer of crust has been laid in the pan, bake the first layer for about 7 minutes. Be careful with this. I’ve had it go very bad because my crust ends bubbling. If you do this, poke some holes in the bottom layer with a fork. What I typically do is once the first layer has been laid down in the pan, I throw it in the refrigerator.
The top layer of the crust is a personal choice on how you want to do it. Recently I’ve gotten into weaving strips of leftover pie crust on top. Some prefer to roll out a new sheet, laying it over the top of the filling and cutting slits for pressure relief. At this point of making the pie, it’s all preference. I’ve found that the full top of layer of crust tends to detract from the taste of the filling, adding much more crust than necessary to each bite. If that is what you like however, by all means, enjoy your pie that way.
