Dueling Caramel Apple Pies

While we were gallivanting around celebrating Thanksgiving, some excellent neighbors fed and entertained our gluttonous, attention-starved cats. As a reward, I promised each of them a pie. (The neighbors, not the cats). I originally intended to customize the pie-making to individual preference, but wound up getting lazy and making the same type of pie for each: caramel apple. It's a hard, cruel, world. They don't seem too upset though.

This is the first recipe I've tried from Ken Haedrich's excellent book Pie. I used his half-shortening, half-butter recipe, and it turned out extremely well. This might be my new favorite pie crust approach, though I'm going to keep experimenting.

I took a lot of photos during this process, though I've found that the masterful and detail-oriented blogger at PieADay.com (and I thought a pie a week was intense) has a much better play-by-play than mine. And the crust is well-explained at For Your Pies Only. Usually I include recipes in my posts, but these folks are doing it better than I would, so I don't see the point. What the hell. More pie means a better world for all of us. If someone really wants the recipe, all in one place, I'll type it up; otherwise, all the info is a couple clicks away.

Here's the bag of apples I brought home from the local farmstand (ignore the pears, pumpkin muffins, salt, butter and other detritus in back, they don't really come into today's narrative):

Here's a bit of my workstation, set up for dough-making.

 Here's what a disk of dough looks like, on its way to refrigeration:

Here it is again, (mostly) rolled out:

Here it is draped elegantly over a pie-pan, not a care in the world, like a spaniel lounging by a fireplace:

And, here's what happens once the edges have been subject to some discipline, and squashed up into a militaristic ridge:

Sometimes an empty pie crust needs a layer of caramel candies to really get its act together.

Meanwhile, back at the apple ranch:

I seem to have skipped an important apple-related step, but here's the pie, streusel-topped but unbaked.

70 minutes or so later:

As the pie cools, a primitive double-boiler is assembled:

Once the caramel is poured onto the pie, nuts follow. The recipe calls for pecans, but walnuts were what we had in the house. It wasn't disgusting.

My taste-testing crew seemed pretty enthusiastic. The caramel base helped the bottom crust stay crispy, and the topping was pretty delightful too. This isn't nearly as sugary-tasting as you'd think: the caramel and apple flavors blend pretty well.


More pie, coming soon.