Move Over, Martha

I baked my very first pie today! I made the crust and the apple pie filling all from scratch. Not to mention, the apples were hand-picked*, courtesy of my friend Julia.

Even though I had to artfully photograph the pie to hide the patch job, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I had always been daunted by the prospect of making my own crust, as it seemed so old-fashioned, but it turns out that pie crust is surprisingly easy to make. Below is the recipe I used:

Basic Pie Dough:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for greasing
About 1/3 cup ice-cold water

Put flour and baking powder into bowl of food processor and pulse to combine. Add cold butter cubes and pulse a few times until mixture begins to become mealy and butter forms plainly visible pea-size nuggets.

Dissolve 1/2 teaspoon salt in the water. With motor running, pour in the water and let mix, just until dough pulls together. Do not overmix. If it appears dry and is not holding togeher, add a few additional tablespoons of water. Form dough into ball, flatten, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to use.

Flour pastry board and rolling pin. Divide dough in 2 equal pieces. Roll out first half, transfer to 10-inch pie dish, and pierce dough in several places with tines of a fork. Fill bottom crust with filling. Roll out second half as top crust. Crimp edges of 2 crusts together to seal. With sharp knife, make several crosshatch slits in top crust. Brush with egg wash and bake.

* * *

Since I was feeling so inspired, I made petite quiches with the leftover dough and tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and parmesan. As you can see, I experimented and had one of the quiches go hat-less.

*It warrants a mention that I too went apple picking, but the fruits of my labor (literally) were sacrificed to the apple sauce gods. Who knew New York would have such a domesticating effect.