Apple of My Pie - Recap

Alton opens the show seated in front of a wall-sized American flag. There he explains that he’s got nothing against culinary globalization – but at the same time he’s sick of selling families toss aside the classics in favor of new culinary traditions. To reverse that trend, Alton places a selection of American classics into a lottery drum. He’ll give that a spin and extract the classic on which he’ll focus an entire episode. The card he selects is... apple pie! He’s happy with that, because he can’t think of anything more patriotic than apple pie. But then his mom enters, wearing a baseball cap and glove. Alton can’t play baseball with her just then, because he’s working... Anyway, he concludes as he turns back to his audience, apple pie isn’t just patriotic, it’s... Good Eats!

Good Eats has dabbled with apples in the past: bourbon-based apple sauce and a couple of varieties of pie crust. But for the national desert, Alton intends to revisit both of these subjects with an eye towards pie.

Pie crust is a balancing act, Alton explains, standing behind a seesaw. On one end he has the structural elements: flour and the water that helps it come together – culinary concrete. On the other side rest the tenderizers: fats, butter, lard and shortening, and of course sugar. The interplay between these elements determines the properties the crust will have. For cream pie, a tender crust might be the goal. But for apple pie, Alton wants more structure: he illustrates by arranging his crust ingredients so the balance is just to the structural side.

Alton starts by weighing his flour into his food processor. Measuring flour by weight steps around the problem of compaction, which makes volumetric measurements tricky to get right. To that he adds standard table salt – his favorite salt, kosher, is just too crunchy for this application. He adds some table sugar and gives the mixture a spin to distribute the ingredients. Alton next adds some chilled, unsalted butter that he has cut into cubes roughly ½” on a side; he pulses the mixture until it just begins to look mealy – about five or six good sized pulses. More fat goes in, this time vegetable shortening, also cut into ½” cubes. Three or four more pulses integrate that. Alton explains that butter and shortening, with different melting points, will work together to create a better texture. Alton needs a little liquid to help activate the gluten. He could use apple juice or water, but he selects applejack, a very early alcoholic beverage that runs around 70% ethyl alcohol. George Washington turned his apples into the stuff, and Abraham Lincoln served it at a tavern he ran in Springfield, Illinois. If it was good enough for them, Alton believes, it’s good enough for his pie. Alton pulses his mixture until it comes together into big hunks.

Some folks might be complaining that this mixture is too wet. Alton explains why they’re wrong: the applejack contains a lot of ethyl alcohol, and it does not combine with wheat proteins to build gluten structures. To prove it, Alton mixes equal amounts of water and ethyl alcohol with flour in two bowls. After a short time, the water bowl contains a glutinous mass, while the alcohol bowl does not. The ethyl alcohol makes the dough easier to handle without creating a large quantity of gluten. The applejack also adds apple flavor, and most of the alcohol cooks out!

Alton divides his dough in half (by weight) and forms each mass into a rough disc. He wraps that in plastic and chills it for at least an hour (and up to overnight). That allows the fat to re-solidify and the flour time to soak up all that applejack.

In the grocery store, Alton explains that the only native American apple is the crab apple, a smallish and bitter distant relative of the fruit that dominates the grocery produce aisle. That apple most likely came to be on one of the ‘stans – probably Kazakhstan. Now, the American landscape is strewn with different types of apples, from Washington State to New York State through Pennsylvania and Georgia.

A man in homespun garb with a pot on his head and a sack at his belt approaches Alton. He recalls John Chapman, the so-called Johnny Appleseed, who really did plant a great many apple trees in the northern Midwest states of Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. And, yes, he really did wear a pot on his head. The truth about the diversity of apples has more to do with the diversity of people, however. Immigrants came to the country with apple seeds in their pockets, and they planted them. And the seeds grew into many varieties of apple tree.

There is, Alton contends, no one “perfect” pie apple. Instead, he intends to use a quartet of different apples. His list consists of Granny Smith (for tang), Honeycrisp (for sweetness), Golden Delicious (for texture) and Braeburn (for being... different). Each brings something to the party, and Alton encourages cooks, especially those who live where apples grow, to try their own combinations. He purchases about three and a half pounds of apples, evenly divided among these types. (He also looks nervously over his shoulder at “Johnny Appleseed, who seems to be following him.)

Apples stay fresh for weeks stored in plastic and refrigerated. Before refrigeration folks placed apples in barrels and sunk them into rivers. In the spring, they were still fresh.

Many gizmos exist for peeling apples, but for small amounts (less than ten pounds), Alton goes with a generic vegetable peeler. Alton does use an apple slicer/corer – not one with eight blades, but one with twelve. Not only does the device make removing the core easy, it ensures uniform pieces. Without these, the pie will not set or cook evenly.

Alton tosses these apples with some table sugar, and then moves them to a colander over a bowl (he wants to catch the liquid that will shortly drain away). That will take an hour and a half.

Alton visits “the beach.” Actually, he visits a dollhouse full of Barbie dolls. They represent water molecules inside the apple (the “house”). A guitar playing Ken doll represents the siren song of the sugar crystals outside the apple, drawing out the water. If enough water leaves, the apple will collapse.

That sounds bad, but it’s actually exactly what Alton wants. If the apples don’t collapse before baking, they will collapse during baking. If that takes two long, the starch in the crust might set before it happens, and when the apples collapse, the result is a hollow dome – not good eats.

While the sugared apples drain, Alton considers the remaining software, starting with spices. Cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg are all fine spices, but they’ve got nothing to do with apples. Alton avoids them (although those who want their apple pie to taste like pumpkin pie are free to indulge, he says). Instead, he’ll go with sugar, salt, and grains of paradise. Alton reminds viewers that he used grains of paradise in the okra show, where he revealed they were also known as alligator pepper, despite not tasting like either alligator or pepper. For those unwilling to brave the Internet for these, Alton endorses caraway as a substitute in the same amount.

From the fridge, Alton grabs limes (to keep the acidity up) and just a little apple cider (or applejack) and a little apple jelly, which adds flavor and helps binds the apples together. This jelly contains pectin, a carbohydrate that works to bind fruit cell walls together.

From the pantry, Alton grabs some tapioca flour. A starch ground from casaba, it dissolves easily, doesn’t gum up like flour and gels at a wide range of temperatures. It also imparts a shine.

Alton recovers the juice from his apples into a saucier and puts that over medium heat until it reduces to a glaze of just two tablespoons’ volume. He adds apples, sugar, tapioca, apple jelly, cider, lime juice, a pinch of kosher salt (yes, kosher for this) and finally some freshly ground grains of paradise.

Now it’s time to convert the pie crust rounds to actual crust. Alton prepares with some flour and a nice large workspace, a roller and some wax paper. He flours the waxed paper and lays the first disc on it, then some flour on that and he folds over the waxed paper. He rolls in one direction and then back, before turning the disc a quarter turn and repeating this. His goal is to spread the disc to the edges of the paper, using light pressure. A few cracks are okay; they will seal later. If the dough gets too sticky, peel back the paper and add a touch more flour. When the first crust is ready, Alton repeats the same process with the second crust. Then it’s time to pan up.

Alton eschews traditional pie pans in favor of... a tart pan! The sides and bottom are two pieces, making for easy de-panning, and the side ridges add crunch to the crust. (Alton angrily pitches away a spring form pan he discovers in the same shelf – he wouldn’t even use a pan like that for cheesecake!)

Alton carefully folds one disc of crust until it fits entirely on the tart pan’s bottom disc, then sets the disc inside the pan and unfolds the crust, removing any excess and using that to patch any holes or cracks. He gently presses the crust against the flutes.

Before loading his pie, Alton discusses how steam will create a hideous mess, unless he can solve that problem. And he can, with a visit to his grandmother’s tchotchke shelf where he obtains a pie bird, a ceramic device that’s basically a steam chimney.

The pie bird goes dead center. Then Alton layers the apples from the outside in, building layers. His goal is to kind of interlace the apples and build them up slightly higher in the middle than on the outside edge. He pours the remaining liquid evenly over the apples, and then layers on the top crust, poking the bird’s head through the middle before he seals the edges together. As Alton presses gently down on the crimps, the crusts seal together and the semi-sharp edge snips off any excess. Alton uses a bit of that to patch a crack. Alton concludes his baking preparations by brushing on that sugary glaze, staying away from the edges (it will glue the pie to the pan). It will add flavor and color (because of the sugar content, which encourages browning).

Alton removes the bottom rack from his oven and sets the temperature to 425º F. Then he slides in his pie, right onto the floor. This cooks the bottom of the pie quickly before the apples get too far along. After thirty minutes, he removes the pie so the crust won’t burn and then puts the rack back in, to the lowest or next to lowest position. Then he bakes for about another twenty minutes.

Removing it from the oven, Alton faces the hard part. The pie must cool for at least four hours so that the pectins, jelly and starch can set. Skip this step and you will have cobbler. At first, Alton sets his pie in the window, and then reconsiders. Evidently, he lives near larcenous neighbors! When the pie cools, Alton de-pans it by setting the tart pan on something narrower than its bottom, and pressing the side gently down until it slides free. Leave the bottom plate in place, or remove it with a spatula. All Alton need do then is carefully (using a serrated knife) cut himself a piece. He starts to sum up this episode, but decides that the pie speaks for itself...

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