I know some Chefs swear you don’t need a bunch of cinnamon and nutmeg and they’re right, you don’t need a lot, it just needs to be fresh. If you can’t remember when you bought it, toss it.
The reason I add rum is because, I like rum. It also gives the pie a nice little kick. For bonus points, I also added a bit of lemon zest and fresh ginger to the crust because why not?
Mise
- Knife and board
- Pie tin
- Large pot
- Small saute pan
- Rolling pin
- Spice grinder
- Wooden spoon
- A lighter
- A pastry brush
- Microplane.
- Counter space to roll dough
Ingredients
- 1 pie crust
- 3 pounds of apples
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 4 ounces of butter
- 3 ounces dark spiced rum
- Cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves (whole)
- 1 egg
- 1 lemon
- 1 chunk of fresh ginger
Method of Preparation
- Make the pie crust and set aside
- Core and slice the apples
- Heat up the small saute pan and add roughly a stick of cinnamon, a tablespoon of cloves and a ball of nutmeg. Let this cook for a minute until it starts to smell then remove from the heat. Grind into a powder and set aside.
- In a large pan or pot, cook the apples on medium until they start to soften (about 10 minutes).
- Drain a little bit of liquid and add the brown sugar and some of the spices and stir well.
- Add the rum and light it up. Let the flames die down and remove the apples from the heat.
- Zest the lemon (save the Zest) and then peel and grate the ginger with the same Microplane.
- Smear the inside of the pie tin with butter and dust it with flour (this makes sure the pie won’t stick)
- Clean your counter and get ready to roll the crust
- Add the lemon and ginger to the dough and give it a quick mix.
- Cut the pie dough in half and do your best to make an even circle.
- Place it in the tin and trim the edges
- Fill with apples
- Roll the other half, cover the apples and trim the excess. Feel free to get fancy with crimping the edge or doing the decorative cuts on the top.
- Whisk the egg with an equal amount of water and lightly brush the crust.
- Bake at 350 for about an hour or so depending on your oven. Hit it with some more of the egg wash at the last ten minutes to really give it a golden hue.
Notes
- Try not to overcook the apples, you don’t want em raw but, you don’t want em to turn into apple sauce.
- Despite its simplicity pie dough is fickle as fuck so if this is the first time you’ve tried it, don’t get frustrated, it takes practice and even I haven’t mastered it.
- As far as what apples, I try to use a red variety since the green kind tend to be too tart for what I’m going for with this but feel free to play and experiment.