Since R and I were on vacation with his family, and got back the Sunday before good ol' Turkey Day, we were able to join with fellow Aggie friends here in MD and have a Friendsgiving. I decided to pull out my Pastry Queen cookbook by Rebecca Rather and make Chef Mark's Southern Comfort Apple Pie. (According to the book, Chef Mark now has his own restaurant in Houston, entitled Mark's American Cuisine.) Rebecca Rather used to own and operate the Rather Sweet Bakery in my husband's hometown of Fredericksburg, TX. I learned today, she has opened a new venture, entitled "The Pink Pig," and I'm looking forward to visiting my in-laws and trying it out.
Rebecca Rather's Basic Pie Crust:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2/3 cup (10-2/3 tablespoons) chilled unsalted butter
- 4 to 5 tablespoons ice water ( I used 5 Tbs)
Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (, combine flour, salt, and sugar on low speed for about 30 seconds. I use Country Crock for my baking, and they have lines for each of the 8 Tbs that make up a stick, so I just sliced along those lines. Add butter to flour mixture and combine on low speed for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes until mixture looks crumbly, with bits of dough the size of peas. Add 4 tablespoons ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing on low speed for 10 seconds after each addition. After final addition, dough should begin to clump together in a ball. If it doesn’t, continue mixing for about 10 seconds longer. (If it still looks too dry, add 1 more tablespoon ice water.) Gently mold dough into a disk, cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Transfer unwrapped dough to a lightly floured surface. The Roll and Cut mats you can find at Michaels Craft Store work amazing for this! Roll into a 1/8-inch-thick circle large enough to cover bottom and sides of a 9-inch-diameter deep-dish pie pan; do not use a regular (shallow) pan. Transfer dough to pie pan, crimping edges with your fingers or a fork. Prick bottom with a fork. (I then put mine in the fridge overnight, til I was ready to make the pie Thanksgiving morning.)
Topping: (For my purposes, I chose to do something different than make this topping)
- 1/2 cup pecan halves
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons firmly packed dark-brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (5-1/3 tablespoons) chilled unsalted butter
Preheat oven to 350*F. Arrange pecans on a baking sheet in a single layer and toast until a rich brown, 7 to 9 minutes. Coarsely chop nuts and set aside.
In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, process sugars, cinnamon, salt, and flour for about 1 minute. Cut butter into small pieces and add to sugar-flour mixture. Pulse 10 to 15 times until mixture is crumbly. Remove from processor and stir in pecans. Refrigerate topping, covered, until ready to use.
Apple Filling:
A note on the apples: If you have a nice-sized deep-dish pie pan, you may have room for more apples. Bake your pie on top of a baking sheet if you’re worried about the caramel filling spilling over.
- 5 to 6 medium-sized tart apples, such as Braeburn, Cortland, or Winesap (I used 5 Honeycrisp)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup Southern Comfort liqueur
- 1/2 cup whipping cream ( I used half & half)
Increase oven temperature to 375* F. Peel, core, and cut apples into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When butter starts to foam, add apples and sauté for 5 to 8 minutes. In a small bowl stir together cinnamon and sugar; sprinkle on apples, and stir to combine. Simmer apples over medium-low heat for about 1 minute longer. Remove apples from skillet with a slotted spoon, leaving as much of butter-sugar mixture in skillet as possible. Transfer apples to a baking sheet and arrange in a single layer until ready to use. (If heaped in a pile, they will become soggy.)
Pour Southern Comfort into butter-sugar mixture in skillet. Simmer mixture over medium heat until alcohol burns off, at least 5 minutes (sniff mixture at close range; if it burns your nostrils, the vapors are still burning off). Add cream and continue simmering until mixture is quite thick but still pourable, 5 to 10 minutes. Return apples to skillet and stir to coat.
Pour apples and cream mixture into unbaked piecrust (do not fill to more than 1/2 inch below top of crust) and sprinkle evenly with topping. Bake until filling is bubbling and topping is brown, 50 to 60 minutes.
Side note: As mentioned above for my pie made for Thanksgiving, I chose not to use the topping. Instead, I used the cut-off scraps from the pie edges to make decorative leaves for the edge and down the center of the pie. My pie-cutters are from the Williams-Sonoma 2011 Autumn set.
