I love Thanksgiving. I always have. I love spending a whole day in the kitchen and the way the house smells like turkey at 9 in the morning. I love having the parade/dog show/football on TV in the background as the day progresses. (I actually hate the parade, especially the musical numbers. It is part of the story of the day, though, so I am fond of the idea of it.) I love making hand turkeys to put on the wall and setting the table with flowers and candles. Even though some (most) Thanksgivings, I end up sweaty, crabby, and covered in flour by the time we are actually ready to eat, every year I look forward to all of it: to the prepping, cooking, stirring, baking, drinking, displaying, chatting, laughing, Scrabble playing, and finally, the feasting.
Lucy’s first Thanksgiving was two days ago. We ended up celebrating in mostly non-traditional fashion, walking to my in-laws’ house for midday ham and green-bean casserole and then heading home to cook and eat late-night roasted chicken and potatoes. My family was away, visiting my collegiate sister in Arizona. It was a different year; fitting, maybe, because having a new baby makes everything different. And though it was strange and a little sad to skip the familiar experience in my mom’s kitchen, a song I know so well, it also felt good to do our own thing. We are starting our own rituals as a young family, building on what we know and making new traditions as we go.
And yet! No matter what traditions we start for ourselves, there will always, always be apple pie at Thanksgiving. I know I promised a covered dish when last we spoke, but trust me: this pie is so much better.
I have been making apple pie for Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember. I am pretty awesome at making apple pie. In fact, Mike claims it was my apple pie that won his heart 9 years ago. This year’s pie might have been my best ever. I tried out a new crust recipe and a new apple combination for the filling, and it was perfect.
Apple Pie
adapted from the Betty Crocker cookbook
You will need:
2 pre-made, all-butter pie crusts
I doubled this recipe from Elise Bauer at Simply Recipes. Don’t forget to increase the sugar amount per the instructions for a sweet preparation. Also, this recipe only makes one crust so make sure you double it. This crust was delicate, temperamental, and ugly. It was also perfectly flaky and had great flavor. I am something of a crust snob, and this recipe makes some of the best I’ve had. It’s my new go-to crust.
8 tart, firm-fleshed apples. I used Pink Lady apples, with a couple of Fujis thrown in for sweetness. Granny Smiths are traditional. Gravensteins would be sublime, if you can find them.
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated if you have it)
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Pinch salt
Preheat oven to 425º. Peel and core the apples. Slice them very thinly, as thinly as you can. This is important! If you cut the apples into thick chunks, they won’t cook all the way through. Thin slices give you soft layers of cooked apples and maximize surface area for flavor to cling to.
Put the apples in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugars, flour, spices, and salt to the apples and mix carefully, using a folding motion. Try to avoid breaking the apple slices. The sugars will dissolve in the juice from the apples, leaving a beautiful, cider-flavored syrup coating each slice. Let the apples hang out and get juicy while you roll out the pie crusts.
Line a 10-inch pie plate with one rolled-out crust. Pour in the apple filling. Cover the filling with the other crust. I like to use a whole crust, but a lattice on top would be pretty, too. Seal and flute the edges. Cut several slits in the top crust to allow the filling to vent while baking. Cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil. Lightly sprinkle sugar over the top of the pie. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for 15 additional minutes to cook the edges. Allow the pie to cool slightly before serving it. Apple pie is delicious at room temperature, but even better warm with vanilla ice cream. It is also good with coffee for breakfast the next day.
pruneandpear 