- [Interviewer] Do you
change, based on the seasons
how many buttons you
have open on your shirt?
Or is that--
- I don't have any
buttons on my shirt, ever.
[laughing]
- Actually, I've had comments
on some of my recipes
that are like, "In order to
make this recipe and have it
"actually taste really good,
you cannot wear buttons."
So.
[slow guitar music]
It's actually really sunny
and beautiful outside,
so I'm actually pretty happy.
Also, I love apple pie.
But I'm gonna show you,
not only the apple pie,
but one of my favorite crusts.
This is actually, legitimately
my go-to pie crust
for all pies that I make.
It's a butter crust, and the
I guess the secret ingredient
is really the vodka.
So, for this pie, and actually
I think probably most pies,
there is the crust, and
there is the filling.
And the first thing that
we're going to do is
we're going to work on the crust.
This particular recipe
makes a top crust and
a bottom crust.
So we're going to mix our dry ingredients.
So, salt.
Very important.
I've got some AP flour there,
and some granulated sugar.
People don't really
understand this, that crusts
actually have flavor.
They should have flavor.
This is cold, cubed butter.
You can do this in a food
processor or you can do this
by hand, or you can use a pastry cutter.
I like to do it by hand,
just because it's kinda fun.
So this particular technique
is called fraisage.
Basically we're going to smear
the butter into the flour
and create nice flaky layers.
What I do is, I just smash it in my hands.
You just have to go a little
more quickly because your
hands are obviously warm.
So here's what you're looking for.
You're smashing the butter
into really thin layers
and each time you smash
it into your hand or into
the counter, you flatten
it out and you get a layer
of flour on the top and the bottom.
Like all of these little bits
with the flour and the butter,
are gonna to create flaky layers.
While it cooks,
the steam from the butter
is going to expand,
and because it's sandwiched
between layers of flour,
it's going to puff up.
All right.
- [Interviewer] Yeah, we're ready.
- Cool. Hands clean enough?
For pie emergencies I actually
do keep vodka in the freezer
and also in case anybody needs a cocktail.
[slow guitar music]
[cork popping]
It's good to keep the vodka cold.
Basically, when you're making a pie crust,
you want everything cold.
Pour out a 1/4 cup of vodka.
A 1/4 cup of ice water.
And then I've got 2 tablespoons
of apple cider vinegar.
And I'm gonna make a
little bit of a well here,
and then just kind of pour it all over.
All right.
You don't want to work
the dough that much.
You just kinda wanna mix
it until it comes together
and just holds it's shape.
It is warming up, so the
butter is loosening up.
All right.
- [Interviewer] You ever just
stick your hands in an ice
bath to try and--
- Yeah [laughs]
Well, you know,
you could like stick your
whole body in an ice bath.
So you can see like little pieces of,
or little bits of flour.
And that's fine.
All right, I'm gonna pat it out.
But it's a little warm, so
I'm gonna just pat it out
and then I'm gonna stick it in
the freezer for five minutes
just to firm up a little bit.
Good morning.
- [Priya] Want to know
something embarrassing?
- What?
- I love raw pie dough.
- I ate a little piece earlier.
- I eat boatloads of it.
I'll like put jam on it.
- Wait, on raw pie dough?
- On raw pie dough, yeah.
I also used to just eat butter plain.
[laughs]
- [Priya] I had a Mighty Ducks fanny pack
that I stored my butter in.
My family went to India
- Uh-huh
and I had my butter
stored in my fanny pack.
And we landed and it
was like July in India,
and my Mom saw something
trickling down my leg
[laughs]
and opened the fanny pack and was like,
"Have you just been keeping
butter in here the whole time?"
and I was like, "Yeah,
I keep it to snack."
- That's a pretty awesome butter story.
- Can I try a little bit
of your raw pie dough?
- Of course!
- Oh my God, I'm so excited.
Mm-mm
- Okay. So it's nice and cool.
I'm gonna show you one of my
favorite layering techniques.
Basically you just pat
your dough down to about
an inch thick and then
cut it into quarters
and then just stack them up
and then press them back down.
And what we're doing when
we're flattening them out,
we're just adding more layers to it.
I didn't write this into
the recipe, but I usually
do this four times, just to
make it really, really flaky.
So I'm gonna do it one more
time just 'cause I like to
do this a lot.
Layers.
Now I'm gonna cut this in half
and pat them out into discs.
I'm gonna go ahead and
just flatten that out.
And you want to let this
rest at least a few hours
in the refrigerator.
That's gonna do a couple of things.
That's gonna relax the gluten that you
have already developed.
But it's also going to give
the flour time to hydrate.
Okay.
So this is the filling.
Obviously they're apples.
I have already peeled and
sliced most of the apples.
What I do normally when I
make an apple pie certainly
but even a peach pie,
anything that's gonna
discolor slightly, I always
get a bowl of water and
squeeze a couple of lemons in it.
Your basically creating an acid bath.
So, what I'm gonna do
I'm using Pink Ladies
It's one of my favorite apples
Pink Ladies, Winesaps, Braeburns,
you want a firm, crisp, tart apple.
I'm gonna core this.
You can use a melon baller
if you have that but,
who has that?
And then you just want
really nice, thin slices.
Like a quarter to an
eighth of an inch thick.
Let me make sure Claire's not here.
So there is a trick
I mean, it's not really a trick, it's like
I hate blind baking pie crusts.
It's just like, so annoying.
So you pre-heat your sheet
tray and then you put the
pie on the hot sheet tray
and let it cook there for
the normal time.
So you'll actually cook
the crust and brown it.
All right.
So now, I'm gonna drain these.
And just put them back in.
All right.
So now, we're going to mix
all of the dry ingredients
into the apples,
so we've got granulated sugar,
dark brown sugar, always
delicious in a fall apple pie.
Salt, salt is another key ingredient
I can't tell you how
much I hate desserts that
don't have salt.
I'm using cinnamon,
cardamom, and allspice.
All right, that is looking good.
Now I'm gonna add a little
bit more lemon juice.
This will continue to
help prevent any browning,
but more importantly,
we're just adding some
additional flavor and
any time you cook for
long periods of time,
whether it's a soup, a stew, or a pie,
flavors start to flatten out
and what any sort of acid does,
is it just brightens things.
I'm gonna use some apple cider
and reduce it on the stove,
and what that's gonna do,
it's gonna give you a really
nice, concentrated apple flavor.
We're adding a whole vanilla bean to this.
So I'm gonna go ahead and
split this before I go
over to the stove.
So just pour this in.
If you can find fresh apple
cider, that is awesome.
I'm going to bring this to a boil.
You want to reduce this down
by like half, two thirds,
it's gonna start to get kinda thick
and then once that's happened,
I'm gonna pour off the
juices that have
accumulated from the apples
into this mixture and let those reduce
and then I want to take it to
a really nice syrupy stage.
I'm also going to
add some cornstarch.
This is going to help thicken the juices.
So this is reducing nicely.
And you can see all those
beautiful vanilla beans
that are in there.
I'm going to add the accumulated juice.
- [Man] Hold on [mumbles]
- Ahh!
And now, we will add those
juices in and continue to boil.
But this is what you want.
It's gonna be nice and dark,
amber-colored, it almost
looks a little caramel-y.
We've gotten all of the
flavor out of these guys.
Now to stir up my cornstarch
and water mixture.
And I'm gonna that
directly in to the cider.
So we're just gonna cook
this for about a minute.
We wanna return to the boil.
So whenever you're cooking
with cornstarch, or whenever
you're using cornstarch, you
never get the full thickening
power until the cornstarch
returns to a boil.
This is gonna bind with the
liquid and create a really,
really, nice little, thick apple,
apple gravy.
So this is cooled ever so slightly.
You don't want to let it get
too cool, you want it to be
at least slightly pourable,
because as it sits,
it will actually stiffen up.
That looks really good,
it smells so good already.
I am gonna have a little
piece, 'cause, why not?
So I like to roll my pie dough out onto
a piece of parchment.
So this actually just
loosens it up a little bit.
And a good thing that Priya's
not around or else she'd
be eating my dough, and
that would be weird.
She might also be leaking
melted butter, also weird.
I usually start from the
center and then just pull it
towards me, and then give
it a little bit of a turn,
pull it towards me,
turn, pull it towards me.
Definitely you want this
on the thinner side,
but you know, I think what
probably is most important,
you can get away with a thin
crust but the thing you want
to make sure is that it's large
enough to fit your pie dish.
Also, as long as your pie
crust is two inches longer
than the size of the
dish, then you're fine.
And now we will roll out the second crust.
I'm gonna throw this into the freezer,
that's gonna be our top crust.
So this is the first crust
that I rolled out, and it's
been in the refrigerator
for about five minutes,
the time it took me to
roll out the second crust.
The top side is
nicely unflowered,
so I'm gonna use
that as the bottom, and then just
there we go
and then just let it slump
down into the pie dish.
The freezer is your friend.
If it starts to get too
warm, just throw it in the
freezer for five minutes.
Excess flour, just brush it off
You want to leave about an
inch of overhang over the
edge of the pie and
I actually did a pretty
decent job of rolling this out
so there's not that much overhang.
Ugh, look at that!
Ugh! So good!
Whoa.
You're probably thinking,
"God, that is like like a
"massively overflowing pie."
But these apples are gonna cook down,
so this mound of apple
is gonna shrink down,
probably a good two inches into the pie.
So we're gonna throw this
in the freezer just so that
the crust can firm up a
little bit, and then we will
add the top crust.
The crust is a little
bit stiff, which is good
also, the surface of the
apples are actually really cold
which is good because
I'm about to put the top
layer of crust on.
But first, I'm gonna make an egg wash.
So this is going to do a couple of things,
it's going to be the glue that binds the
two crusts together.
I'm also gonna add a
little water just to thin
it out a little bit.
Just like a teaspoon or so.
Before I put the top crust
on, I'm going to take
two tablespoons of butter
and just dot the top,
as the pie bakes, it's
gonna melt in there.
This is my chilled top crust.
So you want this top crust
to be slightly smaller
than the bottom crust.
Because we're going to roll
the bottom over to the top.
So I'm just gonna go ahead and trim this.
Make sure as you start
cutting, that you're leaving
at least 1/2 inch of overhang.
So now, we're just
gonna roll the top over.
And again, if it starts to seem too soft,
then just throw it back in
the fridge or the freezer.
So now, you can kinda
press down a little bit
just to seal it a little bit better.
And if you trim off a little bit too much
or sometimes as you're pushing
the dome down and filling
in the gaps, it'll pull some
of the dough and you'll have
less than you anticipated,
so what you can do is
just fill in gaps with
pieces of the trimmings.
So what I'm gonna do is,
push in with my thumb
in between my index finger and
my thumb and my other hand,
and that will make a
nice exaggerated flute.
Egg wash the top.
And,
you can be pretty liberal with this.
You can use demerara sugar,
you can use granulated sugar,
you can use raw sugar.
I would not use just regular
brown sugar 'cause that's
gonna clump, and there's a
little more moisture in it.
Ha, ha, ha!
So the steam vents are
really, really important.
And I'm gonna make sort
of an exaggerated, kind of
decorative steam vent.
You can just do slits
in the pie if you want.
I'm gonna to make four
triangular-shaped cuts.
And then, just pull this up and over.
It looks pretty, and also it's going to
ensure that steam is going to escape.
All right.
Now I'm going to put this in
the freezer for 10 minutes
to firm up the crust and
to get a little chill
on the apples.
And, I have pie scraps,
which I'm very excited about.
Okay, so I have a hot oven, 425 degrees,
the rack is set in the center,
and I'm gonna put this sheet tray
in there to heat.
This is the cold pie.
All right.
Okay, so one of the things
that's a little bit unique
about how we're baking this
pie is that we're going to
start at a really high temp,
425, and then we're going
to lower it after five minutes to 375.
And the reason for that is
we have a really cold,
hard crust from the 10
minutes in the freezer
We're putting it in a hot
oven to really set the crust.
Do we have ice cream?
Yes!
My God, you just made my morning!
The one thing about the
technique on the hot sheet tray,
you can see how nicely brown
the crust is on the bottom.
This is probably a Rick-size slice.
So it's still nice and juicy.
I don't like pies that are
overly set, especially with
an apple pie, you want
some of that nice juice to
still be in there.
It's just beautiful,
like thin, flaky layers.
Look at that.
Mmm
That would be wrong.
Hi Sohla!
- I have plates.
Should I get the ice cream scoop ready?
- Yes!
Oh do you wanna scoop, while I cut?
- Yeah!
- Great!
I want an extra big scoop on mine.
- Okay.
How's that?
Is that enough?
- I mean, it's pretty.
Matt!
- [Woman] Matt, you want pie?
- [Matt] Pie? Yes!
- Pie?
- Oh!
- Oh, hi Carla!
- Hi, hello, oh really?
- I don't have the
beautiful chesticles, but
[laughs]
I'm working on it.
- It's BA's best, but
like a slight hybrid.
- Yeah.
- Used the, I know
[laughs]
We need more ice cream!
- That's okay!
It's okay, it's okay, it's ice cream sauce
- Actually, that's even better.
- Yeah, it is.
- [Rick] Yeah.
[laughs]
So I used vodka in the crust.
- Ah.
- Yeah.
- Mm-hm
- Mmm.
- Delicious! Look at those apples!
- [Carla] Well, that was amazing.
I'm in a great mood now.
- [Rick] Good, yay!
- I'm gonna leave with this.
- I know.
[laughs]
- Bye Rick!
- Bye!
- See ya!
- I'm just gonna sit here
with the other third of
this pie, and a full pint of ice cream.
And I'm gonna be a very happy boy.
Mmm.
[slow guitar music]
