My dad got home from a trip this afternoon. He was only gone for the night, but long enough to think of me. After all, he brought me a present….a magazine with a feature on pies. In my family, this is what we call a boomerang gift – something you give knowing it will come back to benefit you.

He knows me too well. Three hours later there was a warm apple pie cooling on the kitchen counter. Dad specifically pointed out how the filling of the pictured apple pie looked gelatinous and firm (not the soggy, spill-out-all-over-the-plate filling I have admittedly have created once or twice). I went to work, using the picture and recipe as inspiration, but strayed quite a bit.  I didn’t have the recommended apples (macintosh),  the brown sugar (don’t know how I didn’t notice we ran out) or the shortening. So I improvised and I have to say… it made the house smell like a million bucks, and it didn’t look to shabby either.

I think this pie worked for two reasons: I’ve been reading up on pie crust recipes and I didn’t pour all the syrupy goodness from the bowl with the apples into the pie. Once again, I was reading words of wisdom for one of the Tartine books and the way they talked about pie crust just makes sense. Basically, a good pie crust uses the ratio of 3:2:1 of flour: butter: water (in weight). from there you can make it your own. For this apple pie I added a pinch of cinnamon, vanilla bean paste and almond extract to make it extra yummy.  And since I really wanted the filling to not be a soppy mess, I decided to pour the liquid that was created from the apples and sugar down the drain.  In retrospect, I probably should have poured it over ice cream…

Recipe

Pie Crust:

300 grams flour

200 grams cold butter, cut into very small cubes

100 grams water

1 teaspoon vanilla paste

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Apple Filling

3 cups sliced, peeled and cored apples (I used envy)

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 molasses

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces

Directions

Crust

• Mix flour, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. 
• Add butter and with a fork (or fingers) break the butter up until you have a coarse meal of the mixture
• Next add the water, vanilla and almond. Mix everything together until you can form a ball when squeezing the dough together. 
• Split the dough into two equal pieces, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.