Our Apple Pie Recipe

Summer is almost behind us and, with the arrival of milder temperatures, we tend to prefer the enveloping taste of a baked dessert to that of a fresh ice cream. Add to that the fact that most apple varieties ripen between September and October, it’s game over! Considered the most widespread dessert in the world, apple pie has hundreds of variations and consolidated styles, such as the French, the Dutch and the American.

For this “batch” we’re flying to the other side of the Atlantic, where the Apple Pie is an authentic symbol of the stars and stripes, there to meet one of the real gurus of this dessert, Erin Jeanne McDowell.

The recipe we are proposing has two secrets: the original preparation technique so dear to McDowell’s heart, which gives the pastry an almost flaky structure, and the GranEssere GustoFibra N°3 flour, which gives it an elegant aromatic bouquet.

Apple pie: the recipe for a flaky and crumbly pastry

Di seguito gli ingredienti per una torta del diametro di 20 cm.

Ingredients for the pastry

• 115 g GustoFibra N°3 flour
• 7 g brown sugar
• 2 g salt crystals
• 115 g butter
• 70 g water

Ingredients for the filling and topping

• 400 g apples
• 60 g brown sugar
• 6 g cinnamon
• The juice of half a lemon
• One egg yolk
• 10 g cream

The method

Place the flour, sugar, salt and very cold butter, cut into 1.5 cm cubes, in a bowl.

Flour each cube of butter and flatten it with your fingertips to a thickness of 0.5 cm. If they are flattened to a greater thickness, the dough will be more crumbly once cooked, while if they are flattened to a lesser thickness, it will be more floury.

Add all the water (very cold) and, using a spatula, allow it to be absorbed. The goal is to obtain a cohesive ball, but not a smooth mixture.

Transfer the ball onto a floured worktop, flour the surface and start rolling it out with a rolling pin. The goal is to obtain a 20 x 40 cm rectangle.

Now proceed with the folding. First fold the short side in half to get a 10 x 40 cm rectangle. Then fold the long side in half, obtaining a rectangle measuring 10 x 20cm. Finally, fold the long side again, using a classic book fold, to obtain a 10 cm square. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it in a refrigerator at 4 °C for 12 hours.

After resting the pastry at 4 °C you can roll it out, but first it is a good idea to prepare the apple filling. For this, cut 400 g of apples (preferably Rennets) into semicircular slices about 5 mm thick, as uniformly as possible. Mix them in a bowl with the lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon.

Having left it at room temperature for a few minutes, to make it more malleable and allow it follow the rolling pin more easily, roll the pastry out directly on a sheet of baking paper to a thickness of 4 mm, giving it a circular shape. Transfer the pastry onto a baking tray without removing the baking paper.

Now arrange the apple slices, laying the flat side on the pastry, taking care to leave 4 cm of pastry free around the edges.

Once the apples are arranged, fold the edges left free over the outermost apples.

Brush the folded edges with a mixture of egg yolk and cream and finally sprinkle them with some brown sugar.

Bake the apple pie at 175 °C for 40 minutes, or until the edges are nicely browned.