I'm still enjoying baking my way through Midwest Made by Shauna Sever, and with plenty of farmers market apples on hand, her recipe for "Glazed Apple Slices" called out to me. The slices are essentially a freeform slab apple pie. There is no thickener in the fruit filling, but the apples sit atop a layer of crushed Cornflakes that keep the bottom crust from getting soggy.
You make the crust in the food processor by blending flour, sugar, salt, cold cubed butter, milk, and an egg yolk. I divided the dough into two equal parts, wrapped them in plastic, and put them in the fridge. To make the filling, you just toss together sliced apples, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and salt. The recipe specifies 1.25kg of Granny Smith apples, and I used Gold Rush because that's what I had on hand. I was uncertain if 1.25kg was supposed to be the starting weight of my apples (before peeling and coring) or the final weight of the sliced fruit. To make sure I didn't come up short, I went with the latter.
You're supposed to roll out one portion of the dough to a rectangle "slightly smaller" than a half-sheet baking pan to form the bottom crust. The dough wasn't difficult to work with, but I had less than I was expecting and it was challenging to roll it out as large as I wanted to. In the end, the crust was more than an inch shy from the sides of the pan, all the way around. I sprinkled on crushed Cornflakes that I had blitzed in the food processor until the cereal was in small pieces, but not ground to dust.
When I looked at the amount of apple filling I had relative to the size of the crust, I realized that it was way too much. In order to maximize my apple usage, I laid slices out in neatly tessellated rows, about four layers deep. Even then, I had a good number of apples slices left over, which I was happy to just snack on. I rolled out the second piece of crust to the same size as the bottom, laid it on top of the apples, and folded up the edges of the bottom crust around the top piece and crimped the dough together. Then I brushed the crust with egg white and baked the pie until it was golden brown.
While the pie was warm, I spread on Shauna's Five-Finger Icing, which is a mixture of powdered sugar, salt, water, and lemon juice. I like this glaze a lot -- I also used it for her kringle recipe and the glaze dries shiny and hard. When I cut the cooled pie, I was delighted to see that the bottom crust was nicely browned and not soggy at all. The Cornflakes worked their magic, but were not detectable when eating the final product. This pie was delicious. The crust was buttery and crisp -- although it was not flaky like BraveTart's crust that I love, but it was excellent all the same.
The fruit was pretty tightly packed inside the pie and there was very little empty space between the fruit and top crust (the only gaps were around the outside perimeter, as you can see in the photo above). While the filling had what I thought was a perfect amount of spice, sweetness, and salt, the fruit was a little soft for my taste. I haven't had a problem with Gold Rush apples becoming too soft in the past, but I would have preferred it if the fruit had retained more bite. But that is literally my only criticism of the pie (my husband's only complaint was that I didn't serve it with vanilla ice cream), and it has nothing to do with the recipe itself.
Since I tend to have a problem making traditional pies with pastry crusts, I particularly appreciate the ease of this recipe -- you get the satisfaction of an apple pie with much less fuss!
Recipe: "Glazed Apple Slices" from Midwest Made by Shauna Sever, recipe available here at The Splendid Table.
Previous Posts:
You make the crust in the food processor by blending flour, sugar, salt, cold cubed butter, milk, and an egg yolk. I divided the dough into two equal parts, wrapped them in plastic, and put them in the fridge. To make the filling, you just toss together sliced apples, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and salt. The recipe specifies 1.25kg of Granny Smith apples, and I used Gold Rush because that's what I had on hand. I was uncertain if 1.25kg was supposed to be the starting weight of my apples (before peeling and coring) or the final weight of the sliced fruit. To make sure I didn't come up short, I went with the latter.
When I looked at the amount of apple filling I had relative to the size of the crust, I realized that it was way too much. In order to maximize my apple usage, I laid slices out in neatly tessellated rows, about four layers deep. Even then, I had a good number of apples slices left over, which I was happy to just snack on. I rolled out the second piece of crust to the same size as the bottom, laid it on top of the apples, and folded up the edges of the bottom crust around the top piece and crimped the dough together. Then I brushed the crust with egg white and baked the pie until it was golden brown.
The fruit was pretty tightly packed inside the pie and there was very little empty space between the fruit and top crust (the only gaps were around the outside perimeter, as you can see in the photo above). While the filling had what I thought was a perfect amount of spice, sweetness, and salt, the fruit was a little soft for my taste. I haven't had a problem with Gold Rush apples becoming too soft in the past, but I would have preferred it if the fruit had retained more bite. But that is literally my only criticism of the pie (my husband's only complaint was that I didn't serve it with vanilla ice cream), and it has nothing to do with the recipe itself.
Since I tend to have a problem making traditional pies with pastry crusts, I particularly appreciate the ease of this recipe -- you get the satisfaction of an apple pie with much less fuss!
Recipe: "Glazed Apple Slices" from Midwest Made by Shauna Sever, recipe available here at The Splendid Table.
Previous Posts:
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Classic Apple Pie," October 22, 2017.
- "A Slab Is Fab: Sour Cherry Slab Pie," August 5, 2017.
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