Sunday Baking: Apple Pies

Two weeks ago my girlfriends and I went apple picking.

It was my first time going and I picked and bought 26 apples. It was a lot of fun, and I got all excited about everything that I was going to make. I also bought while at the farm this fantastic apple peeler, slicer and corer. It is now my favourite piece of kitchen equipment that I own. It seriously cuts down the prep time for making apple crisp (one of my favourite things to make, and something that I definitely did make last week).

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, and so yesterday I made 2 apple pies for the first time and used up the rest of my apples from apple picking.  Now, full disclosure, I did not make the pastry for these pies. I most definitely bought them. I don’t have a rolling pin (adding that to the shopping list), but I wanted to make pies.

For all that I didn’t have to make the pastry, I was still apprehensive about making the pies. I’ve never made pies before, and I know that they can be super difficult to make.

For the pies, I used this recipe from 12 Tomatoes.

Filling:

8 cups cored, peeled, sliced apples
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon for top of crust
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
splash of water

Even though I was making 2 pies, I decided to do the filling for each pie separately. I thought that there would be less chance of me everything up, which turns out was not the case.

Once your apples are sliced, peeled and cored put them aside. Then in another bowl, you mix the sugar, brown sugar, flour, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir that up until everything is mixed together well, and then add in your apples. Mix it until the apples are all covered with the sugar mixture.

Then you pour the apple sugar mixture into your (in this case) premade store bought pastry shell. I found that I ended up with too many apples for the first pie, it started to look a bit like a mountain and the second pastry shell wasn’t deep enough to go on top and seal.

After you pour your apple sugar mixture into the pastry shell, chop up 2 tablespoons of butter into little pats and put them on top of the apples. Then in a little bowl you crack open an egg and separate out the egg white and the egg yolk. Discard the egg white, and stir up the yolk, and add a splash of water. Once that’s done, take a little brush, or if you don’t have one of those use a spatula, and brush on the egg mixture around the lip of the pastry. (It took me until the second pie to figure out the spatula thing because I don’t have a brush. That is also going on the shopping list.)

Then in a little bowl you crack open an egg and separate out the egg white and the egg yolk. Discard the egg white, and stir up the yolk, and add a splash of water. Once that’s done, take a little brush, or if you don’t have one of those use a spatula, and brush on the egg mixture around the lip of the pastry. (It took me until the second pie to figure out the spatula thing because I don’t have a brush. That is also going on the shopping list.)

Next, take your second pastry shell, flip it over, and cover your pie. Press down on the edges so that the pie is sealed. You can take a fork and make little indentations around the edges to give it some flair (or if you are more creative than I am, go to town with your design). Make sure though you poke some holes in the top of the pie so that the steam can escape.

Finally you take the rest of your egg mixture and brush it onto the top of your pie. Then you take a tablespoon of sugar and sprinkle it onto the top.

Then you just bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.

This is what mine looked like at the end. They actually exploded a little bit in the oven and then spilled over. I think it might be because the shells weren’t deep enough or maybe I didn’t make deep enough holes in the top?

Also another full disclosure: The pie on the left I forgot to add the egg yolk to the top of the pie and then sprinkle sugar on the top until about 20 min into baking, so I took it out and did it and then put it back in. The pie on the right, I totally forgot to add the little butter pats to the top of the apples. My friend Natalie though assured me that it would still taste fine. We’ll see how this goes. I’m taste testing it on my family today and tomorrow 😉