A few weekends ago we ventured out to a nearby orchard to pick what was left of the season's apple harvest. We came back with loads and loads of perfectly crisp, sweet and delicious honey crisp apples. While we had visions of apple butter, cider and caramel apples in our heads, we knew the first thing we had to make was our favorite recipe from America's Test Kitchen, Classic Apple Pie. We included a few of our own personal tweaks, and we also used Cheeky Kitchen's perfect whole wheat pie crust (we can vouch, it really lives up to the name!).
So without further ado, here is the recipe adapted from America's Test Kitchen, but with our own tweaks.
Yields 2 9-inch pies.
Crust:
- Double recipe (for lattice top pies) Cheeky Kitchen's perfect whole wheat pie crust
- Cinnamon, brown sugar and egg wash for dusting pie crust
Pie:
- 2 tablespoons flour (we used whole wheat)
- 3 granny smith apples
- 6 honey crisp apples (ours were large)
- 1 tablespoon juice and one teaspoon grated zest from one lemon
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
- 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 tbsp. cold butter, diced
Directions:
Adjust an oven rack to the lowest position, place a rimmed baking sheet on it and heat the oven to 500 degrees.
Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface or between 2 large sheets of parchment paper to two circles large enough to fit your pie plates. Transfer dough to plates. Working around the circumference of the pan, press dough into the pan corners and trim off any hanging dough.
Peel, core and slice the apples into small, bite-size pieces and toss with the vanilla, lemon juice and zest. In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, flour, spices and salt. Toss the dry ingredients with the apples. Turn the fruit mixture, including the juices into the pie shells.
Roll out the rest of the dough into flat circles. Use a pizza cutter or knife to cut into thin strips to fashion into a lattice top. Alternatively, you can forego a lattice top and just do a flat top with four holes in it. Flute the edges or press with a fork to seal. Brush egg wash on the top crusts and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
Place pies on the baking sheet and lower oven temperature to 425 degrees. Bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Rotate the pies from front to back and reduce oven temp. to 375 degrees. Continue baking until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, about 30-35 min longer.
Let cool and enjoy with vanilla ice cream!
