Amazing Apple Pie
As the days start to get a little shorter, and the nights blissfully a little cooler, it becomes the perfect time of year to make apple pie. Apple pie perfectly embodies the autumn season, with their bright sweetness encapsulating the bright sunshine of summer days past and the baking and spices signifying the warmth and coziness of the seasons ahead. Making a great apple pie may not seem as easy as the saying goes, but with a few tricks and tips, it can be a lot easier than it seems.
Apples Aplenty
Knowing which apples make the best pie and how to appropriately prep them saves on stress during the baking process and ensures a tasty filling. When it comes to choosing apples for apple pie you want to focus on apples that are naturally high in pectin with a firm flesh. Granny Smith and Golden Delicious are often recommended, and in fact a 1:1 blend is a great place to start for your filling. The tart Granny Smiths provide extra pectin to keep the filling from becoming apple soup and the Golden Delicious add extra sweetness and that essential apple flavor. However, these aren’t the only apples that make great pie, and half the fun is experimenting (the result is you get to eat more apple pie). Try out your favorite apple and see how it works in your pie recipe.
Slice it? Dice it?
Slicing apples should be the easiest, if somewhat time-consuming, step of making apple pie. With a few tricks, it becomes simple and methodical.
- Start by washing all the apples. You will be peeling them but washing ensures no grime or microbes get cut into the apple once the peel is removed.
- Get a large bowl of cool water and put in a couple teaspoons of lemon juice, you’ll use this to keep your apples from browning as you peel them.
- Give yourself ample workspace and line up your apples, peeler, and lemon water bowl so you create an assembly line for apple peeling.
- Peel each apple, you can remove the stems at this point, too. To make clean up a breeze place a bag on your counter to collect the apple peels for the waste basket or your compost heap.
- Once each apple is peeled, place it in the lemon water, repeat until all apples are peeled.
To quickly and safely slice apples for pie, let us show you this easy method used by pastry cooks all over.
- Take an apple and place it, stem side up, on your favorite cutting board (we recommend the EndGrain Cutting Board, flipped over to utilize the large, ungrooved side).
- Next, imagine a square around the core, take your knife and cut just to the outside of the core along this imaginary square. This will cut off one side of the apple
- You’ll then place that flat side of the apple (the just cut surface) flat on the cutting board.
- The next slice will be made just to the outside of that apple core again. You’ll now have an apple with a square corner around the core.
- Proceed with the remaining two sides.
- You can now take each piece from the apple and slice or dice as you prefer for your apple pie.
A Pie-Opening Experience
Hopefully the above tips will not only inspire you to bake a delicious apple pie, but also help your next pie turn out perfect. Please share your pies on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter! We can’t wait to see what you bake!
P.S. – Your EndGrain makes a beautiful presentation for that finished pie, but please wait for the pie to cool before setting it on your wooden cutting board! If you don’t wait for it to cool, you could scorch or burn your lovely board.