Of blessings and the perfect Apple Pie

A few years back I made my first apple pie, and my late father (always the final and most important tester) deemed it tooooo sweet to be edible (not exact verdict, but you get the gist). Since that time, I have ventured in finding the perfect recipes for food that I love to eat. I can now make a mean Peking Duck. And I have memorized the recipe for Siomai. Eclairs are a breeze now and so are Churros. 

Even before working on my resolutions, I decided it is about time I tried making the elusive apple pie. And there is nowhere else to begin but with Martha. I get my Martha Stewart Living magazines from BookSale, which can be found in malls all over the Philippines. Their back issues cost around 75.00 pesos. A steal considering all the eye candy you get inside!

I decided on the cheapest apple I could find at the market, which costs around 15.00-25.00 pesos a piece. I modified the recipe from Martha Stewart Living Nov. 2007 for Spiced Apple Pie with Fluted Round Cut-outs and adapted it to ingredients that I could easily obtain in the ranch and the market. I ended up using 6 apples which is roughly 1000 g and substituting the lemons with the local calamansi (albeit making it less for our calamansi is stronger in tanginess).

The crust recipe I stuck by the real deal called Pate Brisee from the same issue. Crusts are always a tricky thing and I was keeping my fingers crossed. Did not wanna mess with Martha on this one for sure! I used margarine (brand was Buttercup, a fairly cheap margarine stick that can be found easily even in small towns here) instead of butter.

Not having a food processor around, I used the classic trick of two knives to cut in the butter into the flour. I did try using a pastry cutter, but I wasn't making much progress on that one. As much as I did not really know how to make a crust, I understood from pie crust recipes that the butter should be cut in for that is what makes it puffy. So judging from the looks of butter obviously dotting the dough, I was feeling better about myself haha.

I made the pie crust cover but making holes into the rolled dough using the apple corer. I did not have the fluted cutter of Martha. This was pretty tricky since I had to work fast since the dough melts the more you handle it. Thus the lack of photos for this part of the process. After the apples were tossed I piled in on the pie plate, making sure to mound it in the middle part as instructed.

All the rounds that were cut-out were then used to dot the rim, joining the two doughs. A quick brushing of egg yolks diluted with a little water (Martha said to use cream, but I had none) sealed it all in. I popped it all back to fridge for an hour before baking.

And tadah!!!! The best Apple Pie ever!!! I held my breath for the tasting (a job which my mother has now inherited), and the verdict was: PERFECT.  And my husband cannot get enough of it. I made another one (to be sure I really nailed it) to bring to my in-laws, and they love it too! Thank you Martha!!! 

Now I can go back to writing down my resolutions for 2009. The year has started out so wonderfully! Dear husband just harvested our corn crop, and the earnings was beyond our wildest expectations. We celebrated last night with cousins at the local restaurant here in hubby's hometown with some beers and listening to a wonderful acoustic set.

Checking my e-mail also brought some good news for I got an email asking me to join this new site called UsTrendy which features fashion designers. Apparently the lady found me interesting from my flickr set with that "Puffer Bride" DIY wedding gown I designed almost 2 years ago which I had blogged about here. How totally unexpected! And really lovely.

Peace.Love.Dream.Thank you world!