In the spirit of this contentious primary season, I decided to make a delicious, golden, fresh-baked pie. Apples are abundant right now and make the perfect filling.
Turns out it was more work than I had counted on, so I had to adjust plans and put the final product in the fridge for tomorrow. But I'll walk you through the process and follow up to tell you how it went later.
I do not claim to be a good cook! Hopefully, it is enough to follow a simple recipe that I found.
I have picked apples in orchards a number of times, but I wasn't up to that today. Pick-your-own is really an entertainment activity, and is more expensive than the store, and I don't feel like I pick out any better apples myself.
So I picked up these Spider-Man apples!
Of course they are really Pink Lady variety. A quick check on my phone suggested it is good for pies. We'll see tomorrow. That is a 3 pound bag.
The only filling ingredients besides apples are sugar, cinnamon, and corn starch.
The apples have to be cored, peeled, and sliced for the pie. This took a big effort and a big chunk of time. My knives are really inadequate -- not sharp enough to core cleanly and too large to peel efficiently. But I plowed through.
Here a bit of
science enters, according to the recipe. If you simply cook the apples inside a crust hot enough to bake and brown the crust properly, then the apples will collapse and be mushy and leave a big void in your pie.
The solution is to raise the apples to 160 degrees F and hold them at that temperature for a period of time. Then the apple's natural enzyme will fix its pectin into a more resilient form that holds up even at crust baking temperature. This gives a pie filled up with tender apple slices with perfect consistency.
This step can be performed by delicately pre-heating the apples over the stove, or by pouring a proper quantity of boiling water over them, or by -- my choice -- using sous vide methodology to hold them at precise temperature in a water bath.
So I bagged up the apples.
And put them in with my sous vide circulator. Since the apples float, I had to weigh them down with a bowl to keep them submerged.
I totally cheated with the crust and just used a store-bought one. I think this was a very wise move for today. Maybe I will try homemade on another occasion.
The apples did lose a fair amount of liquid after sous vide. Most of this, I tossed, though I read some people reduce it down and make apple caramel. I only drizzled a spoonful over the apples once they filled the pie. It looked like this half-way through.
My 3 pounds of apples was enough to fill the pie pan level to the top. So maybe I should have prepared 4 pounds to get it bulging up nicely. Oh well.
I brushed some egg white over the top of the crust before baking.
Then into the oven at 450 degrees F. It looked like this after 20 minutes.
At this point, the temperature is reduced to 375 degrees F for another 25 minutes of baking. The end result looks great!
Unfortunately, I really messed up the timing of this pie and underestimated how long it would take to prepare the apple slices, and then heat them at 160 degrees, and then cook and allow time to cool. So I had to give up on having tasty, warm apple pie for today. It went in the fridge, and I will try it tomorrow.
Will the apples hold their form? Or collapse? Will the flavor be right? Cinnamon and sweetness just as should be? We have to wait to find out.