The classic version of American apple pie is a delicate pastry made from two layers of dough with a fragrant filling between them. This favorite dessert of Americans is also called pie. There are many modifications of apple pie, but the classic recipe is based on a tender, crumbly dough and filling with apples and cinnamon in caramel.
Peculiarities of American Apple Pie Cooking
The classic American apple pie recipe involves the use of hard apples: Granny Smith, Fuji, Red Delicious, etc. This will allow the pieces to retain their shape during the baking process. It is allowed in a homemade recipe to mix green and red apples for a more complex aroma. Mixing apples with cinnamon and baking in caramel made from juice and sugar gives the cake a special original taste, which makes the filling thicker and more tasty.
The classic American apple pie recipe
Ingredients for the dough:
- 200 g butter;
- 320 g flour;
- 1 tbsp Sahara;
- 1/2 tsp salt;
- 100-120 ml of cold water.
Ingredients for the filling:
- 1 kg of apples;
- 80-100 g sugar;
- 1 tbsp cinnamon;
- 1 tbsp lemon juice;
- 30 g butter;
- 1, 5 tbsp. corn starch.
Step-by-Step Cooking American Apple Pie: Dough
Grate the butter and place in the freezer. Combine flour with salt, stir. Mix the congealed butter with flour in a food processor or grinder. You can rinse the butter and flour mass with an ordinary fork, but you need to do it quickly, until the butter has melted.
You should get a very fine crumb. Add ice water to it in small portions, kneading continuously until the dough starts to stick together when pressed. But at the same time, the dough should not stick to your hands.
Knead everything well, divide the dough in half and roll each part into a ball. Wrap each ball with cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour. Shortbread dough must be cooled before baking so that the gluten swells well. Such a product will be airy, porous and soft. Roll out the dough chilled so that the cakes do not flake, crumble, break or stick to the rolling pin.
Filling for American Apple Pie
Start preparing the filling with apples. Peel and cut into small pieces, removing the core. Add cinnamon and sugar to the apples in a cup. It is advisable to take not ordinary, but brown sugar. Pour in the lemon juice, this will allow the apple slices to retain their shape when baking and will not let them brown - the filling will turn out to be a beautiful golden color.
Mix everything well and leave for 30-40 minutes at room temperature for the apples to start juicing. Drain the juice into a saucepan. It can be used for syrup.
Place the saucepan over low heat and simmer the juice for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. When there is a lot of foam and the syrup begins to thicken, remove it from the heat. Pour the resulting caramel syrup over the apples.
Sprinkle the apples with cornstarch and mix everything thoroughly. The filling is ready.
Step-by-step assembly of American apple pie
Remove both pieces of dough from the refrigerator. Sprinkle the working surface of the table lightly with flour, rub with flour and a rolling pin. Roll the ball into a layer so that the diameter of the resulting cake is larger than that of the baking dish, just to the height of the sides. To make the biscuit roll out evenly, direct the rolling pin from the center to the edge, moving in a circle.
Use a rolling pin to transfer the resulting layer to a baking dish. To do this, carefully wrap a layer of dough on it, brushing off excess flour. Holding above the mold, unwind the dough and spread it over the bottom.
Gently form the sides at the cake, pressing the layer along the bottom of the mold with your fingers. The sides should come out with a slight overlap.
Place the apple filling on the layer. Roll out the second ball of dough in the same way as the first cake, it should also extend slightly beyond the edges of the mold. Cover the filling with a second layer.
Finish forming the sides, for this, blind the edges of the cakes and tuck the upper layer under the lower one. To help the dough hold together easily, moisten your fingers with water.
Tuck all excess dough in a circle as well. Thus, you will get a beautiful rim - a wavy edge. It is formed by hands, for this, substitute two fingers of one hand, and press the dough with the other.
From the center of the upper layer, make 5 small cuts with a knife. They are necessary for free steam and checking the apples for readiness. Try to make the cuts even so that you can cut the finished pie from them into portions.
Place the dish in an oven preheated to 200 ° C and bake at the same temperature for 1 hour. There is one trick here - it is better to put the pastries in the bottom of the oven so that the top does not burn before the apples are baked. Otherwise, it may happen that the edges have already grabbed and darkened a little, and the inside of the cake is still damp. If you still succeed, cover the sides with foil and send the cake to the oven.
After one hour, take out the cake and cover with foil, even if it is not burnt. Press down gently on the foil to keep it from flying off. Bake the apple pie for another 30 minutes. If the apple filling begins to bubble slightly through the cracks, then the apples are well baked.
Check the readiness of the pie through the hole in the top layer: pierce the apples with a toothpick, they should be soft. The classic American apple pie is ready. But he needs to completely cool down and infuse.
Serve the American apple pie chilled with a serving of ice cream or homemade whipped cream.
