Caramel Apple Pie
I am writing this post because I feel it my civic duty to share my caramel apple pie recipe with the world - an act of philanthroPIE you might say. I have made, and eaten a lot of apple based desserts in my time - pies, crumbles, and the highly favoured tatin. This is not only the best apple pie I have ever tasted, it is also the best apple dessert I have ever had, knocking my beloved tarte tatin smartly from the top spot. This is no mean feat just to be clear - I had my first taste of tarte tatin at culinary school whilst waiting nervously for the chef to come around and grade it. It was so irresistible to me that I devoured the rest of it crouched on the locker room floor still in my sweaty chef whites, hair net and all. Incidentally, as my memory fades, this has become my way of telling whether a dish I made at culinary school is worth making again. If I remember attacking it on the locker room floor after class i will make the effort to decipher my cryptic and mostly dissolved class notes and give it a chance in my life ‘on the outside’. This is all to say that I am truly as shocked as you are that this apple pie has upstaged the tatin of locker room floor fame. How can this be? I will tell you. I have borrowed the caramelised apples from the classic tatin, added a good hit of cinnamon, and re-homed them in the flakiest all-butter American pie crust known to man. I doubt I am the first person to cross breed a french tarte tatin and and American apple pie, but if i am, I really should be knighted. This is the only apple pie recipe you will ever need, so if you make even ONE dessert this cosy season, make this caramel apple pie recipe. Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible if you develop an addiction to making this pie and you, all of your friends, and your family triple in size within a month.
Caramel Apple Pie
Serves 6 - 30 mins active time, 45mins to bake
Pie dough:
- 315g all purpose flour plus extra to dust
- ½ Tablespoon caster sugar
- ½ Teaspoon table salt
- 225g cold unsalted butter, diced
- 7 tablespoons iced water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Filling:
- 7 Granny Smith apples, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 ½ Teaspoons cinnamon
- 115g unsalted butter
- 200g caster sugar
- 3 Tablespoons all purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons caster sugar
Finish:
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 Teaspoon demerara sugar
Method:
1. Put the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt in a stand mixer and beat for a few seconds to mix
2. Add cold diced butter and mix on medium speed until coarse crumbs and some pea-sized pieces have formed.
3. Add 7 Tbsp of ice water and continue to mix until a rough ball comes together around a minute.
4. Transfer dough to a clean work surface, and gather together into a ball but do not knead it (it shouldn’t be smooth). Divide dough in half and flatten into 2 disks. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.
5. Preheat oven to 200 degrees fan and butter your pie dish.
6. Peel, core and thinly slice apples.
7. Place 200g sugar in a pan on high heat. Shake and swirl the pan until you achieve a deep amber caramel. Add the butter and stir on the heat for a minute. remove from the heat, add the water and stir again. Add the apples, cinnamon, flour, and 2 tablespoons of caster sugar. Stir to combine and set aside to cool.
8. Sprinkle your work surface with flour and roll out bottom pie crust to the size of your pie dish. Wrap it around your rolling pin to transfer it to the dish. Add apple mixture, mounding slightly in the centre. Roll the second piece of dough into a round and cut into 10 even thickness strips using a straight sided spatula or dough scraper. Arrange the strips in a woven lattice pattern over the top. Beat together 1 egg and brush the top with egg mixture. Sprinkle the dough lattice with demarara sugar.
9. Bake at 200 degrees in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180 and continue baking another 45 minutes or until apples are soft and filling is bubbling through the vents. Rest at room temp for an hour if you want the filling to hold its shape, or as long as you can resist if you don’t mind a more liquid result. Serve with vanilla ice cream.