How to make a handsome and tasty apple pie

People sometimes ask me for my apple pie recipe. It's not so much a recipe as a meticulous method for baking a more-or-less classic pie.

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Filling

• 10 or so apples, depending on the size of your dish. I look for, in order of preference: Cortland, Mcintosh, Braeburn. Gravenstein and others are great, too. You might be able to find some good cooking varieties in your own area at farmers markets and produce place.
• 1/2 cup of raw sugar (Raw sugar is no healthier for you, but it tastes better, more complex, than refined white sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon of fresh ground nutmeg
• 3 teaspoons of cinnamon (Vietnamese cinnamon is my choice)
• 2 Tbsp. of unbleached white flour plus a pinch of corn starch to thicken the liquid a bit

Crust

• 3 cups of unbleached white four
• 2 sticks of cold sea-salted butter (I used Kates sea-salted butter on the east coast. Out west I use Kerrygold Irish butter.)
• 3-6 Tbsp. cold water (need not be ice-cold)

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Making the filling

To begin, peel the apples. Do this fairly quickly and without worrying about getting all of the peel off. Lots of the good apple flavor is right near the skin.

Slice each apple into about 12 pieces. I slice off two hemispherical pieces, "sides," then cut down to the core in the other direction, leaving a squared core. The two semicircles get cut into 3-4 wedges, depending on the starting size, and the remaining half-moon shapes into two, but at an angle to the flat side. This seems meticulous, but I think that these sizes make a pie that cooks well and has a good mouth feel. These shapes also pack well (see below).

I don't like those spiral simulutaneous corer-slicers because the slices are too thin and the apples cook before a good crust can really get done. I like to keep things simple. You can do with a good knife what most of those gadgets to when they're not just taking up space.

Now mix the ingredients to coat the apples: sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, flour and a little corn starch.

The crusts

Now mix the crust ingredients into a glass bowl. The salt in the butter is about all you need to make the crust have a nice flavor, though some like a bit more; up to you. If you use unsalted butter, be sure to add about 1 tsp. of salt to the flour mix. Sea salt, which is a mix of many edible salts, is always tastier in my view.

Cut the butter into 1 cm pieces and add to the flour.

Now use a pastry blender to mix in the butter. This can be a long process. It can take 300 or more strokes and you need to make sure you get all the way down to the bottom of the bowl on each. This is absolutely what makes a great, flaky crust. Roll up your sleeves and get going.

A fully blended crust is fairly doughy. You can feel the cutter moving through the flour/butter mix like it's moving through clay, not powdery dust, and you're getting pieces the size of peas and beans holding together. How long this takes and just what consistency you'll end up with depends a lot on the humidity of the day. Summer crusts are faster; winter flour is drier and takes longer to work.

Now begin adding water to the crust, 1 Tbsp. at a time, tossing thoroughly with a fork in between each addition. Use a tossing motion, working the fork to the bottom of the bowl. You're not trying to stick the four together. Let it do that on its own as you add more water.

As you add water and toss, the dough will stick together and become difficult to move around with the fork. 4-6 Tbsp. of water is common in summer, with more usually needed in winter.

This recipe makes enough dough for two large crusts, one top and one bottom, with a little trimming left over for decorations. Form (press and slap) 1/2 of the dough into a ball and place on a floured piece of light canvas or a floured smooth dish towel.

You can do quite a bit of flattening of the dough using just the palm of a hand. Slap in the edges as they crack to reform them. Try to keep the edges neat until you're just about at the size you want.

Filling the pie

I like to stack my apples at least twice as high as the height of the dish.

This is important: If you just throw the apples in, they'll bake down, leaving a lot of space between the apples and the top crust, which will eventually collapse. The key is to stack the apples carefully so that there is little space between them. It's like laying brick or building a stone wall.in a way.

Top crust and baking

To apply the top crust, first add some "glue." With a water-dipped finger, wet the rim of the bottom crust with water so that the top crust will adhere to it. You don't want it to leak at the seams. Flip the top crust using the towel/canvas just like you flipped the bottom crust into the dish. Be careful with your aim.

Now trim the crust with a sharp knife.

Use the side of your thumb to crimp the edges shut. I used to do this more meticulously. It's best if you just keep moving. Keep the pie turning and keep crimping, making even divots, deep but not so deep that you push all the way to the rim of the dish, as you go. This step will esure that your highly stacked pie won't leak out through the crust seam.

Now let's put on some decoration. I like to put leaves on an apple pie. I cut them with an old rusty cutter (rust is just iron oxide; it won't make anyone sick). I'd buy a new one but I've never found another like this.

I use a sharp knife to cut in central veins ...