Apple Pie

Here goes my first attempt at making apple pie and making any kind of pastry crust all by myself.

There are a plethora of pie crust recipes out there. I think many pie crust recipes I've come across use shortening, and swear it's a secret ingredient to make the flakiest crust. Well, I never have shortening on hand, and I'm not sure whether I really want to go try buying it so I made my crust using all butter. 

I followed this pie crust by smitten kitchen. She has her own opinions on ingredients and supplies and methods, and I found them rather entertaining and informative to read. As a novice baker, I think she provided thorough and easy instructions to follow :D (and that's saying a lot because I tend to get very confused on even the simplist of instructions. You don't realize what you take for granted when you already know how to do things and are writing instructions down. Some people, namely me, really need every little thing described and explained.)

Pie Crust:
 **makes enough crust for a double crust pie (or 2 single crust pies)
-2 sticks (1 cup) of butter (KEEP COLD) (dice into 1/2 inch cubes)
-2 ½ cups AP flour + extra for dusting
-1 tsp salt
-1 tblsp sugar
~3/4 cup ice cold water   (I ended up using ~ 1/2 cup + 3 tblsp water)

I didn't have a pastry blender, so I mixed the flour and butter together using a fork until it was about pea-sized. At first I thought I messed up and added too much flour because the butter wasn't incorporating like the pictures from Smitten Kitchen, but as I kept mashing the butter into the flour, the more it looked right; it just took a lot longer than I thought it would, so be patient if you're also using a fork. Let's just say this experience definitely persuaded me to get a pastry blender for future baking endeavors (even if I don't bake that often); I think it will be worth the money. We'll just put pastry blender on my Christmas wishlist, and maybe I'll treat myself during the holidays. 

Following Smitten Kitchen's instructions, I added 1/2 cup of ice cold water to my flour+butter mix and mixed with my spatula. I then added water 1 tblsp at a time, and ended up adding 3 tblsp. However, I will say that I think 3 tblsp was too much in my case and my dough ended up being super sticky and wet. I ended up dusting the outside with some flour to make it a little drier, but the rest of the dough is still pretty wet. Just be aware and keep checking the dough with your fingers to see if it sticks before adding more water. How much water you need may depend on the humidity of the day, and just a bunch of other factors. Split the dough in half, wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour (they say preferably 2 + hours)

Apple Pie Filling:
So, I mostly used a combination of recipes as a guideline, mainly smitten kitchen's. (I didn't use this crust because it required shortening and vodka). This is what I used:

-5 apples (2 smaller Lady Pink apples, 3 larger Fuji apples) peeled and sliced
-2 Tbsp lemon juice
-1/4 +1/8 cup white sugar (I thought that most of the recipes used sooo much sugar, so I decided to cut the amount of sugar back a lot, especially since I thought my apples were pretty sweet.
-2 tsp AP flour
-1/4 tbsp salt
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 tsp nutmeg
-1/4 tsp allspice
-1 egg beaten lightly

After I peeled and sliced my apples, I mixed them with the 2 tbsp of lemon juice. Then I mixed the flour, salt, sugar, spices together in a separate bowl and added it to the apples. Toss and mix these well. I put this mixture in the fridge while I waited for my dough to chill.

Rolled out the dough via these instructions. I placed one half of my crust in my pie plate (the bottom crust) and refrigerated the dough in the plate as I rolled out and cut the other half of my crust dough into strips for my lattice. 

Baked my pie at 425 F for ~ 20 min and then at 375 for another 30 min.

Successful baking adventure all by myself! As a baking novice, I'm quite pleased with myself. It actually came out pretty well (some of my bottom crust stuck to the plate, but I guess i didn't butter my pie plate well enough in those areas. Personally, I thought that it was still on the sweet side, so I might actually cut down the sugar even more next time. Personal preference though, I think my mom said that sweetness wise she thought it was okay.  

Who knew, this wasn't enough pie to go around! I have been portioning out pieces for family and friends and there isn't much left. I'll have to make another one sometime!