Thankful for Dutch Apple Pie

I'm painfully close to finishing my last academic obligation of the quarter, so naturally, I am blogging instead of working on that pesky take-home final. I spent the whole day writing a paper for another class, though, so I when I finished, I felt somewhat justified in taking a short respite... 

That was several hours ago, though.  "A short respite" turned into grocery shopping and watching Glee, but then, I have never been good at self-restraint. Perhaps this explains why Fall quarter was not terribly kind to me in terms of free time for baking... But never fear, things are looking up for the Winter!

In any case, along with all the other aforementioned distractions, I decided to throw together a batch of shortbread cookies tonight. ("Just shortbread? Meh." you say? Don't worry, they are much cooler than that. The instructions called for a cheese grater, so something new and unusual is definitely afoot. More on this in my next blog post.) Then I remembered that I forgot to blog about my Thanksgiving baking adventure. 

I usually make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (loyal OCB readers will recall the homemade kobucha version from 2011), but this year I decided to go with something that my brother might actually enjoy. Some time ago, my big bro confessed that he doesn't actually like pumpkin pie... The horror! All these years, he'd been quietly suffering, just to be polite. What a guy. All of that nonsense ended this year, however, as I decided to make... Dutch Apple Pie!

How did I arrive at this decision? Some of you may be surprised to learn that it was not until I became a young adult (in age only, of course. I have yet to reach this status in actual maturity.) that I came to understand the wonder and glory of homemade pies. I have always been a fan of buttery-flakey things, but as a kid, my only exposure was through a fellow Sara... Sara Lee, to be precise. Mom always let me pick the frozen pie we'd bake on holidays, and I always, always, always picked Dutch Apple Pie. There is something about those crispy, crumbly bits on top of spiced apples that just takes me to another place. 

I hope my family enjoyed it. They always say they do, but now that I know my brother has been putting up with pumpkin for so many years, I wonder if I can trust any of them anymore... What do you think? (Apologies in advance for the bad pictures -- they're taken from my phone, since I forgot my real camera in LA.)

The recipe I followed was somewhat piecemeal. My go-to pie crust is, as I am sure you know by now, the Flour Bakery pâte brisée. But the filling and crumble top came from this fairly generic, but universally well-rated recipe on Food.com. One small, but significant modification I made was to blind bake the pie crust before filling it with apples. I've gotten into the habit of blind baking, since I discovered that it prevents the dreaded "soggy bottom crust" syndrome. Interestingly, although I don't have any pictures to prove this, I didn't have enough pie weights, so I ended up weighing down the crust with pebbles Mom bought for the bottom of decorative flower vases. I washed them, of course... They actually held up the edges quite well, so I think I'll keep using this technique until Mom decides to dump them into a vase.

Enough rambling. Here's the recipe, for anyone who may be interested.

Dutch Apple Pie, adapted from Food.com and Flour Bakery

Ingredients

1 Pâte Brisée II, recipe here
5 1/2 cups peeled cored sliced cooking apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

For the topping
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup butter or 1/3 cup margarine, room temperature

Directions:

Prepare pâte brisée for the pie crust. When you are ready to make the pie, blind bake the crust at 375°F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow the crust to cool, and continue with apple pie recipe as follows.

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Fit pie crust into pie plate.
3. In a large bowl, mix sliced apples, lemon juice, both sugars,flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Pile into crust.
5. Prepare topping:.
6. In a medium bowl, with a pastry blender or a fork, mix flour, both sugars, and butter until coarsely crumbled.
7. Sprinkle evenly over apples.
8. Bake at 375°F for 50 minutes.

Pie for procrastination

Ugh! I'm super behind on both baking and blogging, and unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to whip anything up in my kitchen until at least Friday. Wah! :(  In fact, I should be studying for the midterm I have tomorrow, but I'm so sick of discount factors and yields to maturity that I had to take a break. What better break than to blog about pies gone by?


I joined a food-related social club at school this year, and although the club isn't super active, we do have pretty fun potluck board meetings! For our most recent meeting, I made a lattice top apple pie (swoon!). Why? Well, because...

As you can see, I'm still goofing off with my Wacom tablet as well. 

There wasn't anything terribly unusual about this particular pie... OH WAIT, except the fact that it was both DELICIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL!

I don't have time to type up the recipe, but of course, it was from the Flour cookbook. Speaking of which... According to her Twitter account, Joanne Chang is working on a savory cookbook, which is unbelievably fantastic. If it is everything I'm dreaming, it will be the best thing that happens to my life, and simultaneously the worst thing that happens to my waistline and my grades.

OKAY.

I should get back to studying, but before I do, here is how I made this pie, starting from when I baked the crust... Roll footage!

Okay, okay... Back to studying... Sorry today's post was so spazzy! I've got finance on the mind. :)

Super かぼちゃ Pumpkin Pie

I drove up to the Bay Area on Wednesday afternoon, arrived around 6:00pm, and basically proceeded to eat everything in sight from then on. I crashed around 1:00 am and somehow managed to stumble down the stairs of my parents' house at 11:30am on Thanksgiving morning. I ate pretty much non-stop from then until about half-past midnight. All said and done, I ate for almost 13 hours straight on T-day.

Needless to say, I got full. Really, really full. In fact, I'm still full. But then, it wouldn't be an American holiday if it didn't involve grazing over overflowing plates of snacks for six hours and then sitting down to an uncommonly large dinner and stuffing yourself silly. I should really learn to pace myself -- the marginal enjoyment of that third piece of pie may very well have been negative in terms of my long-term life expectancy.


I was also lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving with two of my very best friends from college, who couldn't make it home to their families this year. Erin and Alejandro have seen me through some of the best and worst times of my adult life, and I'm really thankful that they've settled in California because it means I get to see them every time I come home to see my family. Actually, they are more or less part of my family, which is why they put up with all my ridiculous antics. Case in point: 

So moving along... 


I don't know much about roasting a turkey (except that it tastes best brined), and the rice stuffing I made last year in Japan turned out bright purple (long story...), so it's probably better that I stayed mostly out of my dad's way in the kitchen this year. The one exception, of course, was the dessert. I've discussed my love of pies at length on this blog before, and now that I have a crust recipe worth dying for, I've moved on to perfecting the filling.


Last year, one of my co-workers made the most amazing pumpkin pie from a Japanese Kabocha squash, so this year I decided to make my own version, from scratch. Kabocha is a really popular squash in Japan -- they grill it, steam it, fry it, toss it in soups, stir fries, salads... pretty much everything. It's a tasty little gourd, so I can understand the appeal. 


To make kabocha puree, I first steamed the pumpkin whole for about 10-12 minutes.

Then I cut it in half, scraped out the seeds (and later toasted those... Divine!), and cut the whole pumpkin into wedges and tossed those back into the steam for another 15 minutes or so, until the squash was soft enough for a fork to go through the flesh easily.

You can eat kabocha rinds after they've been cooked like this, but since I was making this into pie, I cut off the rinds and pureed the whole thing in a food processor.

The color of this pumpkin is really fantastic -- it's perfect for fall and the holidays.

From there, I measured out 16 ounces of pumpkin for the pie for the Flour Bakery Super Pumpkiny Pumpkin Pie. I left my Flour cookbook in LA, but luckily, I found a version online at Flour Child. Bless the Interwebs! I also have a ridiculous amount of pumpkin leftover, so I'll try to bring that back to LA to whip up something delicious.

The other thing I tried this time around was to pour the extra pumpkin pie filling into small ramekins and bake them alongside the pie. I'm really pleased with how those turned out, and I'm now wondering if maybe I can do some sort of pumpkin pot pie in the future, because that would allow me to enjoy pumpkin pie without having to blind-bake the crust ahead of time. 

Super Pumpkiny Pumpkin Pie
Makes (ahem) one 9-inch pie.

Pate Brisee II (recipe follows)
One 16 ounce can pumpkin purée (I made my own.)
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar (I used dark brown, as it's all I had.)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup evaporated milk
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

My additions:
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon brandy

1. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a well-floured work surface, roll out the dough into a circle about 12 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. Roll the dough circle around the pin and then unfurl it on top of a 9-inch aluminum pie pan or glass pie dish. Press the dough gently into the bottom and sides of the pan. Evenly pleat the overhanging dough with your fingers to create a decorative edge, or use scissors to trim the overhang, leaving a 1/4-inch lip (to allow for shrinkage in the oven). Refrigerate the pie shell for at least 30 minutes. (The pie shell can be tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 1 day or frozen for up to 2 weeks. Bake directly from the refrigerator or freezer.)

2. Position a rack in the center of the oven, and heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

3. Line pie shell with parchment paper, fill with pie weights, and blind bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the entire shell is light brown all the way through.

4. Meanwhile, scrape the pumpkin purée into a medium saucepan and stir in the brown sugar. Place over medium-low heat and cook, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the pumpkin has reduced to a somewhat thick paste and darkened. Remove from the heat and whisk in the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Then whisk in the sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk.

5. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and egg yolk until blended. Slowly whisk in the cream and vanilla (and the maple syrup and brandy, if using), then gradually whisk in the pumpkin mixture and continue whisking until thoroughly mixed.

6. When the pie shell is ready, remove from the oven and leave the oven set at 350 degrees F. Remove the weights and parchment, and pour the pumpkin custard into the shell.

7. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until the custard is just set. The edges of the custard will puff up a little and the center should still have a little wiggle in it. Let cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours. Serve at room temperature or chilled. (I found this pie tasted best after being refrigerated for 24 hours.)

8. The pie can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Pâte Brisée II
Makes about 10 ounces dough, enough for (ahem) one 9-inch single-crust pie, 10-inch crostata or 9-inch quiche.

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon) cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons cold milk

1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a handheld mixer), mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Scatter the butter over the top and mix on low speed for about 45 seconds, or until the flour is no longer bright white and holds together when you clump it and pecan-size lumps of butter are visible throughout.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolk and milk until blended. Add to the flour-butter mixture all at once. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds, or until the dough barely comes together. It will look really shaggy and more like a mess than a dough.

3. Dump the dough out onto an unfloured work surface and gather it together into a tight mound. Using your palm and starting on one side of the mound, smear the dough bit by bit, starting at the top of the mound and then sliding your palm down the side and along the work surface (at Flour we call this "going down the mountain") until most of the butter chunks are smeared into the dough and the dough comes together. Do this once or twice on each part of the dough, moving through the mound until the whole mess has been smeared into a cohesive dough with streaks of butter.

4. Gather up the dough, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and press down to flatten into a disk about 1 inch thick. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using. The dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Mini Pear Pies

I'm huge fan of pies -- even more so than cakes, actually. Shove some fruit in a flaky crust, and I'll gobble it up before you can say "a la mode?" Blueberry pies make me positively swoon, but since it's not blueberry season, tonight's recipe features Comice pears.

The only trouble with pies is that they're hard to serve and eat. Since I knew I had to transport this treat to school, I thought I'd try to make... mini pies! 


I didn't want to buy a bunch of mini tart pans, so I picked up a muffin pan over the weekend and figured I'd try that. I had to search around a bit to find an appropriate recipe, but I managed to find one on Cooking Creation that looked promising. I have a pie crust recipe that I absolutely love in the Flour cookbook, so I made the Pâte Brisée on Sunday night and assembled the minis tonight. 


And now, cheers to smell-o-blogging!


For interested parties, here's the recipe, adapted from Cooking Creation: 


Mini Pear Pies


4 Comice pears, peeled and thinly sliced 
1/4 c white sugar 
2 tbsp brown sugar 
1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt 
1 tsp lemon juice 
Pâte Brisée (from Flour cookbook) 


Cut parchment paper circles to fit in the bottom of each muffin well. 


In a large bowl, combine the pears, white sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and lemon juice. 


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 


 Divide dough in half and roll out to just under 1/4 inch thickness. Using a large drinking glass or round cookie cutter (I used a mug, because that's all I had), cut circles out of the pie crust dough. Place half of the circles inside a greased muffin pan, stretching so the edges extend above the pan. Fill each well with the pear mixture. 


Top with the other half of the dough circles and seal the edges. Cut an X in the top of each pie.


Bake for 17 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.  

Flour Bakery Pâte Brisée 
Makes about 18 ounces dough, enough for 8 pop-tarts or one 9-inch double-crust or lattice-top pie 


1 3/4 cups (245 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour 
1 tablespoon sugar 
1 teaspoon kosher salt 
1 cup (2 sticks / 228 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces 
2 egg yolks 
3 tablespoons cold milk 


(I mixed this dough by hand, and it turned out fine, but the original instructions direct you to use a mixer, naturally. Again, poor students make it work.)


Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a handheld mixer), mix together the flour, sugar, and salt for 10 to 15 seconds, or until combined. 


Scatter the butter over the top. Mix on low speed for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, or just until the flour is no longer bright white and holds together when you clump it and lumps of butter the size of pecans are visible throughout. 


In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and milk until blended. Add to the flour mixture all at once. Mix on low speed for about 30 seconds, or until the dough just barely comes together. It will look really shaggy and more like a mess than a dough. 


Dump the dough out onto an unfloured work surface, then gather it together into a tight mound. Using your palm and starting on one side of the mound, smear the dough bit by bit, starting at the top of the mound and then sliding your palm down the side and along the work surface (at Flour we call this “going down the mountain”), until most of the butter chunks are smeared into the dough and the dough comes together. Do this once or twice on each part of the dough, moving through the mound until the whole mess has been smeared into a cohesive dough with streaks of butter. 


 Gather up the dough, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and press down to flatten into a disk about 1 inch thick. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before using. The dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to 4 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.