Paul Lindsay's Cooking Blog: Apple Pie a la Mode

In a recent post, I discuss how I won a cooking competition by baking a beautiful and tasty apple pie. I was unable to locate any pictures of that award winning pie, but that's OK because I can whip up a great tasting pie and take pictures of it any day of the week!

This post contains 2 recipes. The first is for the dough needed to make the pie crust. The second is for the apple pie. Both recipes came from The Professional Chef, which is The Culinary Institute of America's textbook. I did, however, make a few minor changes of my own.

I watched a YouTube video titled: CIA Chef of the Century Paul Bocuse. In it, Chef Bocuse says, "To me, butter is the main ingredient in cooking." Butter is now my main ingredient in cooking, too! So, I wanted to pay particular attention to use the best butter in preparing both my dough and my apple pie. I recommend you do the same! (I used Kerrygold Salted Butter.)

Basic Pie Dough (3-2-1)

Makes 6 lb 6 oz/2.89 kg

Ingredients

3 lb/1.36 kg all-purpose flour
1 oz/28 g salt
2 lb/907 g butter, cubed, cold
1 lb/454 g cold water

Combine the flour and salt thoroughly. Using your fingertips, gently rub the butter into the flour to form large flakes or walnut-size pieces for an extremely flaky crust, or until it looks like a coarse meal for a finer crumb.

Add the water all at once and mix until the dough just comes together. It should be moist enough to hold together when pressed into a ball.

Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and shape into an even rectangle. Wrap the dough with plastic and chill for 20 to 30 minutes.

The dough is ready to roll out now, or it may be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 6 weeks. (Thaw frozen dough in the refrigerator before rolling it out.)

Scale the dough as necessary, using about 1 oz/28 g of dough per 1 in/3 cm of pie pan diameter.

To roll out the dough, work on a floured surface and roll the dough into the desired shape and thickness with smooth, even strokes.

Transfer the dough to a prepared pie or tart pan, or cut and fit into tartlet pans. The shell is ready to fill or bake blind now.

Apple Pie a la Mode

Makes one double-crust pie (9 in/23 cm)

Ingredients

1 lb 4 oz/567 g Basic Pie Dough
1 lb 8 oz/680 g Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
5 oz/142 g sugar
3/4 oz/21 g cornstarch
1/2 tsp/1.50 g salt
1/2 tsp/1 g ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp/1 g ground cinnamon
1 tbsp/15 mL lemon juice
1 oz/28 g butter, melted

Prepare the pie dough according to the recipe directions. Divide the dough in two equal pieces. Roll half of the dough 1/8 in/3 mm thick and line the pie pan. Reserve the other half, wrapped tightly and refrigerated.

Cover the dough in the pie pan with wax paper. Poke a few holes in the wax paper for venting. Add something with enough weight to keep the wax paper from blowing off. (I normally use about 5 pinto beans.) Place the pie pan in the oven and bake at 375*F/191*C for about 10 minutes, or until the crust has the same coloring as pictured below.