Andrew and I have been eating take-out and super simple meals so often lately, I decided it was time to make something that would require some real effort. What better solution than homemade pie from scratch? It didn't take long for us to choose the kind of pie after a short trip to the Logan Square farmers market (I'm pretty embarrassed to admit it was our first time there this year).
We picked up golden delicious and granny smith apples. In retrospect, I wish we had gotten more of a variety but there's always next time!
To make the crust I used this great Smitten Kitchen recipe. I cannot recommend it enough, I was super worried but I could not have been happier with the results.
While my dough chilled (for 2 whole hours!) I peeled, cored, and sliced the apples.
For the filling I combined a few different recipes, but mostly this one from Smitten Kitchen. Martha suggested dotting the filling with butter, so, duh, I listened!
Rolling out the dough started out really stressful but ended up being a lot of fun! I popped the dough in the freezer every ten minutes practically. Even bought my first rolling pin and broke out my mini pie cutters I got on super duper sale from CB2!
The moment it came out of the oven I could not contain my joy! The crust was so shiny and looked absolutely beautiful. I wanted to shove the entire thing in my mouth right there and then.
Because the top crust would have collapsed if I dug in prematurely, I decided to be resourceful and make mini apple pie cookies with my leftover scraps of dough. I had a ton of filling left so it was perfect. Smitten Kitchen has a recipe for those, too!
It had to cool for 4 hours and I started the whole process around 5pm, so we didn't get to eat any until the next morning. At 8am. With ice cream. I also tweeted the entire experience because I'm a doofus and I like to share. Plus it was so pretty! I don't claim to know anything about pie, but man, that was some good pie.
Next time I plan to use more of a variety of apples, a little less clove and nutmeg, more sugar (or maybe just less granny smith apples?) and a larger pie dish! I used an old pie tin from Baker's Square.
