Pie Day

[stoutfellow]

I finally got around to making apple pie for Thanksgiving today. A few notes:

1) I think I should go over to the Chef Shoppe sometime soon and get an apple corer, a rolling pin, and maybe a sifter. (I remember Mom had a crank-handle sifter with two rotating sieves inside. I don't know just how it worked, but it would give me joy to have one.)

2) I sliced my left thumb while peeling apples - a slit the size and shape of a paper cut. After an hour or two bandaged, it seems to have healed.

3) This was the first time I've made both crusts, upper and lower, from scratch; usually I've gone with store-bought Pet-Ritz crusts for the lower crust. I'm rather pleased in one respect: my lower crust held together, when sliced, much better than Pet-Ritz crusts tend to, but that may just be because it was a bit thicker. (Rolling pin....)

4) Overall, though, I'm a little disappointed in the pie. I'm not sure whether the crust is a little too salty or the filling isn't sweet enough, but it isn't quite as tasty as the ones I've made before. (This is my third apple pie.) I need to figure this out, because I volunteered to bring an apple pie to the department holiday pot-luck this year.

Comments

[mmegaera]

Rolling pins are very useful (how on earth did you make a pie crust without one?). I find apple corers to be less so, and in thirty-odd years of baking I've never used a sifter [g].

What kind of apples did you use? That can make a huge difference in flavor. My favorite pie apple is a Gala.

[stoutfellow]

I think I used Galas last time; this time, for some reason, I used Pink Ladies. I'll switch back for the pot-luck.

I used a metal water-bottle (from the Reno convention) in place of a rolling pin.

[mmegaera]

Pink Ladies are an eating apple, and lose a lot of flavor when cooked. I can't find a chart online that agrees with me about what apples to use for what [g], but I prefer Galas for baking and Honeycrisps for eating fresh. I just wish Honeycrisps had a longer season [sigh]. They don't store well, and they're gone for the year (you can still find them, but they're not really any good anymore).

Oh, and spend a few bucks on a rolling pin. They're worth it.