Caramel apple pie

Difficulty: 3/5

This apple pie is so good I’m craving it just from seeing the pictures again! It’s super moist and the crust is very buttery almost like a cookie. If you don’t feel like doing the crust (the difficult part) you can buy a pre-made crust, but I assure you this crust is perfect for some sweet caramel apples!

Portions: 22cm diameter mould, about 8 portions

INGREDIENTS:

For the crust you’ll need:

– 250gr butter
– 1/2tbsp salt
– 4cups flour

For the caramel apple filling you’ll need:

– 6 small apples or 4 large As you cut you can see if it’s enough to fill your mould.
– 4 lemons
– 1 cup sugar
– 1/3 cup flour
– 1/2 tsp salt
– Cinnamon sticks
– 100gr butter

PREPARATION

1. Start with the crust as it needs to rest for 30min. Beat with an electric mixer the butter until soft and fluffy. If you took the butter right out of the fridge, you can soften it by putting it in the microwave in the “unfreeze” mode.

2. Add little by little the flour and beat away until it doesn’t stick to your fingers. Evaluate if you need more flour and add accordingly.

3. Let rest for 30min in the fridge covered in plastic wrap.

4. While we wait, start with the apples. Peel them, cut them in slices and soak them in water with the juice from the lemons. This will make the flavour pop once inside the pie, contrssting with the sweet caramel and salty crust.

5. Now that the crust has rested for 30min, free it from the plastic wrap and divide it into three equal parts. Now here’s the tricky part. This dough is extremely sensitive, do not handle it more than necessary or it will turn hard! 2 of the parts will be the bottom crust, so piece by piece put it on your mould including the sides and push with your fingers until you get a 2-3mm thick crust. Afterwards, take the apples off the lemony water and put them into the mould.

6. Now the caramel! Melt the butter in medium heat, add the sugar, cinnamon sticks and a cup of water. DO NOT forget the water or the sugar will burn in the butter and not melt. Bring up the heat to medium-high and let it boil and wait for the colour to darken a bit, about 2min after it boils.

7. Pour your sweet goodness onto the apples as fairly as you can, and save a bit to paint the top lattice later.

8. Now, you have to do the lattice for the top. Again, do not handle the dough too much! To do a strip take a bit and form a worm and put it on top of some flour and stretch it out with a rolling pin until 2mm thick. carefully lift it and put it on the pie. If it brakes, it doesn’t matter! Put it piece by piece and join them a bit with your fingers on the pie itself. Because it’s so buttery, this is sure to happen. Once you did it, paint over the lattice the remaining caramel and then sprinkle sugar on it.

9. Put it in the oven at 210C (410F) for about 40min. Check that the crust is golden and that when you insert a knife between the lattice, the apple is not as crisp as before, it should be about halfway between crisp and completely soft. If you see that this is not happening, it is completely normal as ovens work different from each other take the following choices
– If the crust is already golden but the apples too crisp, turn the oven to only bottom heat and continue cooking.
– If the crust is not golden and the inside too crisp, keep cooking
– If the crust is not golden but the inside is cooked (unlikely), turn up the heat to max and only on the top.

10. Let it cool at least until you can touch the mould with your fingers and not burn yourself, or it will fall apart when you cut it. Always serve warm (you can microwave it if completely cool) and hopefully with some vainilla ice-cream! Hope you like it!