The Yankee Kitchen: Blue-Ribbon Apple Pie

Yankee Magazine’s Amy Traverso shares her recipe for the perfect apple pie, an American classic. Hi, I’m Amy Traverso, Lifestyle Editor at Yankee Magazine. Today, I’m going to be making one of my favorite recipes which is Blue Ribbon Deep Dish Apple Pie. It’s my favorite apple pie and it comes from my book, The Apple Lover’s Cookbook. Now, what I love about this pie is that it’s substantial, it has a lot of fruit in it, and it has a great crust. And what I especially like is that, as a deep dish pie, the fruit actually fills the pie and goes right up to the crust. You’ll notice sometimes if you order deep dish pie that you’ll get a little bit of a gap in between the crust and the applies. That’s because the apples cook down while they’re in the oven but the crust sets and stays up, so you get that gap. This method that I have allows you to cook the pie with a beautiful crust that goes right up to the fruit. So let’s get started. For this recipe you’ll need two and a half pounds of firm, tart apples, such as Northern Spy or Granny Smith, two and a half pounds of sweet apples, such as Golden Delicious or Pink Lady, one third cup granulated sugar, two tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar, one and a half tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, a half teaspoon of ground cinnamon, a half teaspoon of kosher salt, and one and a half tablespoons of cornstarch. In a large dutch oven over medium low heat, stir the apples with the sugar, brown sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and salt. Cook, stirring gently, until the apples just begin to turn tender (about ten minutes). Remove the apples from the heat, stir in the cornstarch and spread the mixture out onto a large baking sheet. Place it in your freezer to cool to room temperature (twelve to fifteen minutes). Meanwhile, unwrap your larger disc of dough, roll it out, working from the center to a thirteen inch circle. Transfer the dough, peel-side down, to a nine inch deep dish pie plate and press the crust into the plate, draping any excess over the side. Remove the apples from the freezer and use a spatula to transfer them with any juices into the pie plate. Transfer the crust, peel-side down, to the pie and then pull the bottom crust up over the top crust and crimp to seal. Brush the crust all over with milk and sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sugar. Make three slashes in the crust to let steam escape and bake on the lowest rack for ten minutes. Reduce the heat to three hundred fifty degrees and bake until the pie is golden brown, another forty to fifty minutes. Okay, my pie is ready. I think it looks delicious. It’s nice and puffy and beautiful. And I cut into it so that you can see that the fruit goes right up to the crust and it’s just chock full of juicy, delicious apples. Now for this and other great apple recipes including some more from my book, you can go to yankeemagazine.com.