Homemade Apple Pie

An apple pie from scratch was a scary thought for me a while back-making dough from scratch was the scariest part. However I thought I would give it a try. I broke it down to, if it didn't work, oh well, I'm out flour, shortening, and water. Not really a big loss. However, if I succeeded, it would be much more than flour and shortening and water! It would be small source of pride, knowing that was one more thing I could cross off my list things to try.

I recently purchased a Kitchen Aid Food Processor, and not that this part is necessary, but dough making became a breeze. If you do own one, use it for this, it'll be perfect!

Homemade Apple Pie
(dough recipe from Ina Garten:Food Network)
(Pie recipe is inspired by several sources, mostly of my own measurements)

For the crust:

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening
6 to 8 tablespoons (about 1/2 cup) ice water

Dice the butter and return it to the refrigerator while you prepare the flour mixture. Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse a few times to mix. Add the butter and shortening. Pulse 8 to 12 times, until the butter is the size of peas. With the machine running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse the machine until the dough begins to form a ball. Dump out on a floured board and roll into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough in half. Roll each piece on a well-floured board into a circle, rolling from the center to the edge, turning and flouring the dough to make sure it doesn't stick to the board. Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan. Repeat with the top crust.

For the pie

8 apples, varieties such as granny smith, fuji, or other good baking apples
1/2 cup white sugar
3 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
lemon juice
4 Tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees, then reduce temperature to 375 degrees after pie is in oven.

Mix the nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar together. Incorporate the butter and 4 Tbsp of flour into the sugar mixture. Slice the apples into thin wedges and place in the prepared pie plate. Mound the apples high with the center of the pie being the tallest. As you are piling the apples in the prepared the plate, sprinkle some of the lemon juice and sugar based mixture between the apples.

Place the second rolled out crust over the apples, seal the edges tightly. I found a good website to demonstrate basic pie crust edging here. Create several steam holes for the steam to escape. Brush the top crust with a beaten egg and sprinkle with raw sugar.

Bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie-lettes

As some of you may know, my husband is an airline pilot. These little treats are pie-lettes, as in mini pies! How cute are these? Almost as cute as my husband is :) We are having a Halloween themed pot-luck at work today and I think these will be perfect for sharing with a group!

The original recipe calls for a hand made pie crust, but with weekends being so busy I opted for the refrigerated Pillsbury pie crust version, a little (ok a lot) easier in my opinion. Also I do not own a 2.5" biscuit/cookie cutter (gasp!) so I improvised and used a small drinking glass as a guide and grabbed a paring knife and traced out the circles. The refrigerated pie crust had two crusts in the box, and that was perfect for this recipe.

Spiced Pumpkin Pie-lettes (from Good Things Catered)

1/2 recipe basic pie dough (or one package of refrigerated pie crusts)
1/3 c. dark brown sugar
1/2 c. sugar
1 Tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground allspice
3/4 c. canned solid pack pumpkin
1 Tbsp molasses
1 large egg plus one egg yolk (reserve the extra egg white for brushing the crust)
1/2 c. cream

Place a heavy baking sheet in oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray mini muffin tin with baking spray. Roll out pie dough and using 2.5 - 3 inch circle biscuit cutter, cut dough into 24 circles. Press each circle into mini muffin tins, pressing dough up the sides.

In small bowl, combine pumpkin, molasses, and eggs. Stir to combine uniformly and set aside. In another bowl (preferably with a spout), combine sugars, flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and whisk to combine thoroughly. Whisk pumpkin mixture into dry ingredients. Slowly mix in cream.

Prior the pouring the filling into each crust, brush the edges with the reserved egg white to give a nice golden finish after baking. Carefully pour pumpkin mixture into each of the muffin tins, leaving 1/8 inch at the top of each crust. Place mini muffin tin on top of preheated baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake until filling puffs and center is fully set, about 10 additional minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool before removing from tins to serve.