Welcome to week 1 of THE BAKEAWAY! This is going to be fun, friends!
We’re going to open class by making pie crust. Please have all of your ingredients measured out and ready – this will just make it easier to follow along in class. Also, you may want to have ingredients on hand make a DOUBLE BATCH (yea, it’s a lot of butter) of pie crust just so you have enough dough to play around with when making a lattice. I would suggest making one batch at a time.
Here are the tools we’ll use today:
- All of the ingredients listed below
- 2 medium bowls
- Whisk
- Fork
- Small cutting board and knife
- Measuring cups and measuring spoons
- Plastic wrap or waxed paper
- Metal pie dish (though ceramic or glass will work too!)
- A clean smooth surface to roll your pie crust on
- Rubber bench scraper
- Rolling pin
- Pastry brush
- Rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment paper
Classic Double Crust Apple Pie
A classic apple pie we’ll bake together for week 1 of The BakeAway!
Ingredients
Scale
- For the Crust:
- 2 1/2 cup (313 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (226 grams/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
- 1/2 cup cold water mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar ( plus 1 to 2 tablespoons more plain water if your dough is dry)
- For the Filling:
- about 7 apples / 2 lbs apples, peeled, cored and sliced 1/4-inch thick. I used a combination of Granny Smith, Fuji and Golden Delicious
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) light brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably fresh grated
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
Instructions
- To make the crust, in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, and salt. Add cold, cubed butter and, using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture. Quickly break the butter down into the flour mixture, some butter pieces will be the size of oat flakes, some will be the size of peas.
- Create a well in the butter and flour mixture and pour in the cold water. Use a fork to bring the dough together. Try to moisten all of the flour bits. On a lightly floured work surface, dump out the dough mixture. It will be moist and shaggy. That’s perfect. Divide the dough in two and gently knead into two disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- To assemble the pie, remove one of the pie dough disks from the fridge. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out into about a 13-inch round. Roll the dough a few strokes, then use your fingers to move the emerging circle around the floured surface. This ensures that the dough isn’t sticking to the work surface. The circle won’t be perfect, that’s ok.
- Try not to get any tears in the rolled out dough, but if you do, they can be patched together with extra dough. When you roll the dough and you can see it start springing back, that means that the butter is warming and the crust shouldn’t be rolled out anymore. Gently lift the 13-inch round from the floured surface and center in a deep 9-inch round pie dish. Place in the fridge while you roll out the top crust. Roll the top crust and place on a plate and allow to chill while you prepare the filing.
- To make the filling, in a large bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and toss to mix. Stir in the cornstarch until it disappears. Allow the apples to macerate at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Carefully spoon apple mixture and all of its juices into the prepared pie shell. Dot with butter chunks. Place the top crust on the pie and seal and crimp.
- Place in the refrigerator to chill while the oven preheats.
- Place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place pie of a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, until the edges bubble and the apples are cooked through.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool to warm room temperature before serving.
