{TWD} All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie Challenges Mom's Apple Pie

My dog, Bro, waits patiently for the pie to cool.

I cannot begin to be objective about apple pie because my mother was the undisputed Apple Pie Queen. Every single day when the 4 of us children were taking naps, my mom baked up a pie worthy of a prize at the State Fair. Her pies always contained soft Macintosh apples, and were spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg (my daughter J.D.E. also adds mace) and thickened with flour. [I've previously posted mom's recipe here.]

When Dorie Greenspan's All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie was chosen for this week's recipe in the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, I was curious to see how it would stack up. But I didn't want to serve it only to my family, all of whom have been spoiled/ruined for any other apple pie by now. It would be a perfect offering at my book group, however, especially since I've never actually baked my mom's perfect apple pie for them!


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Emily of the blog Sandmuffin chose the All-American, All-Delicious Apple Pie for us this week. What a perfect fall choice! You can find the recipe by clicking over to her blog post.

- Mom's pie uses cinnamon and nutmeg and so does Dorie's. In fact, they use the same amount of the same spices. The measure of sugar is the same, as is the quantity of butter to dot the filling before popping on the top crust. Hmm, could they be the same pie?

- No, they are not! When I double checked the recipes, I saw that Dorie's pie calls for a whopping 4 pounds of apples (also described as 6 "very large" apples), whereas the pie I usually make takes about 2 pounds (specified as 6 medium apples). In a nutshell, mom's pie filling has proportionally double the sweetness (Well, my mother definitely confesses to a sweet tooth.), spiciness and buttery-ness of Dorie's.

- Looking further I see that Dorie adds the lzest of a whole lemon, and my mom never used any lemon at all (although the recipe she used as the basis for her pie did call for lemon juice).

- Apple pies can tend to get very juicy as they cook (depending a lot on the kind of apples used in the filling). Dorie takes care of this in two ways: by lining the bottom crust with graham cracker or bread crumbs, and by adding "quick cooking" tapioca to the filling. Other bakers use flour or cornstarch to thicken their pies, my mom opting for flour. I have never used tapioca to thicken an apple pie and I was curious to see how it would turn out (for this recipe I used "minute" tapioca because that's what I had. For that matter, that's all that I could find on the shelves of our local grocery store.) I did leave out the crumbs.

the big pie, ready to hit the oven.

- By the time all was said and done, there were 5 different apple varieties in this pie: Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Golden Delicious, and two unidentified apple types that arrived in my farm box. Sometimes I briefly pre-cook the filling for a few minutes on the stove top, which can compact the filling a bit and also gives the apples a bit of a head start in getting soft and melty (the way I like them best in pie). I didn't do that with this recipe, though, because I really and truly wanted to bake the recipe the way Dorie wrote it (wonder of wonders...).

- It is hard to describe jut how much filling was in my mixing bowl. My pie pan is 9" and pretty deep, and I worked until I had a very tall pie, but I still had enough left for a 6" mini (which I popped into the freezer unbaked). Well, truth be told, I did add a few slices of Asian pear to the small pie before I popped on the top crust, but if I hadn't packed so much into the main pie I could have easily filled the mini with the extra apple filling.

The mini-pie, ready for its trip to the freezer!

- I used my up-until-now Foolproof Pie Dough from Cook's Illustrated. I'm pretty sure that my bloggy buddy Cathy's recent negative experience with that crust recipe was contagious because mine was pretty wet/soggy this time. It was so soft that I could barely work with it, but luckily it baked up fantastic and flaky. - I might have forgotten to dot the filling with butter - I nearly always do forget, and have been known to slide bits of butter in through the steam vents after the pie is all sealed up.

- For me the hardest part of baking an apple pie is figuring out when to take it out of the oven. My mom's advice is to wait for "lazy bubbles" which helps a lot. I wasn't sure about the bubbles on this filling because the tapioca thickener was unfamiliar to me, but I took my best guess on appropriate bubble laziness, and I think the pie was baked just the right amount.

the verdict:

I have to say that this is very nice apple pie recipe indeed. I loved the combination of apples. Each variety cooked to a different level of softness and had a slightly different apple flavor, which made the filling very complex and interesting. The relatively mild level of spice and sugar may have let the apples take more of the stage than my familiar pie.

The pie was, to put it mildly, well-received by my tasters. Slice after slice disappeared, as everyone enjoyed the pure fall delight of warm apple pie on a crisp evening.

Clearly Dorie's pie gave Mom's pie a run for its money. If I weren't so imprinted to the specific taste of my usual pie, I might just say that Dorie's was just as good. But, shhh! you didn't hear it here!

A slice for me and a slice for you!