Runner-Up Pie

 

I entered the Manard Farmer's Market apple pie contest this past weekend with this pie. It was the runner-up in the "Tastiest" category. The categories were "Prettiest", "Tastiest", "Most creative filling", and "Best crust". There were 25 pies entered. My pie used the Cooks Illustrated "Foolproof pie crust" recipe, which was great. It uses half water and half vodka as the wet ingredients because vodka doesn't make gluten with the flour like water does, creating a more tender crust. I highly recommend looking it up and trying it. For the filling, I used local ginger gold and cortland apples. I like my pie filling to be pretty spicy, so I use a healthy dose of cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg. One of the biggest dissapointments with apple pie can be cutting into it to reveal a watery mess. Two things can help this: 1) don't cut it hot!! Let it cool- I think it even best the morning/day after it has been cooked. 2) Use a binder in the filling- either flour or corn starch. I typically use flour in an apple pie (a tablespoon or two) and then dot the filling with butter before putting the top crust layer on. It's hard to gage how watery your apples are going to be, but the fresher they are, the more water content they usually have. Plus some varieties of apple just seem to be more watery than others- I've had trouble with macs in the water department.
Happy Pie baking!