Hi my dear reader! Hope all is well! I have been away from posting my recipes for some time,and today I checked my calendar and today it’s already 1st of December!! Oh wow, I am so excited, that the Christmas season has already arrived. And it gives me the opportunity to write down this delicious and very good looking Festive Apple Pie.
I know, there has been so many recipes for Apple pies. You can make them from apple purees, whole apples, cubed apples. You add sugar, cinnamon and butter. Then pie dough, yeah easy peasy, this and that…yes, it is actually easy to make a pie, but…. for Christmas, easy shouldn’t be the word to use for making pies, cookies or any Christmas foodies. For Christmas, it should be special, festive, original, it should be your specialty, your Christmas Pie. So, as I am writing this, it makes me think, that it is absolutely inevitable, that all the Christmas specialties should be made only for Christmas or special occasions, like this they will always remain so special.
And now I am wondering, what is your specialty, what is your secret ingredient you use the special Christmas cookie or Christmas pie. Mine is most probably hazelnut, vanilla sugar and Czech alcohol called Tuzemak or simply Rum. My grandmother, my mother and I, we all add Czech Rum to almost all Christmas cookies. And I know that all Czech grandmas, mothers and girls uses the Czech Rum as well 🙂 Czech Rum has it’s own special aroma, which makes all the cookies, creams, pies more delicious and very special.
Ok, I should probably go back to my Apple Pie. So yes I do use Czech alcohol Rum ( just a little bit) into my Christmas Pie. Just to give a nice aroma of Christmas, I also add roasted hazelnuts in it and some citrus flavors, such as lemon, orange or clementine zest. It will give to your pie completely different dimension. You will smell this roasted nuts, zest of lemon, apples, hm, some cinnamon and yes butter. Butter dough smell so good!!! Don’t get me wrong, yes all the good and tasty things are not the best for your health, but if you keep it in moderation, then everything should be fine. Don’t forget, you will also nurture your mind with this positive aromas, so don’t think about calories or unhealthy ingredients in this Apple Pie. Think of the good thoughts and how much you will make your tummy happy 😀.
APPLE PIE a la Julia Recipes
INGREDIENTS:
Pie Dough
- 180g all purpose flour
- 1 & 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 100g butter
- 120 ml cold water
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
Filling
- 10g melted butter
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 medium apples
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp dry ginger
- 50g roasted hazelnuts
- 1 tbsp of Rhum (preferably dark one)
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Sift the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt and mix together in large bowl.
- Add butter (room temperature) and work in together with your hands.
- Slowly add cold water and continue working the dough with your hands, until the dough in not sticky.
- Cover the dough with plastic cover and let stand in refrigerator for at least half an hour.
- Preaheat oven on 180C/375F, middle rack.
- Butter well the pie pan.
- Roll out the dough on a floured work surface or between two sheets of parchment paper in a 3 to 4-mm (1/8-inch) thick sheet.
- With the help of a roller, move the dough onto the pie pan and press gently, so it fills all the corners. Cut off the leftovers with scissors or knife.
- Mix together melted butter, maple sirup and vanilla extract. Let cool.
- Prepare apples; Cut in half, remove seeds and cut on very thin slices.
- Start to place the apple slices on top of each other creating round stair pattern.
- Once you cover the whole pie, mix cinnamon, ginger and hazelnuts and sprinkle over the apples, as well as add the mix made from butter, maple syrup and vanilla extract.
- With the rest of the dough, you can create nice decoration of the pie. For example I used Christmas motives, stars and mistletoe leaves. Now it all up to your imagination.
- Brush off with 1 egg and bake for 45 minutes.
- Let cool off and serve with your favorite ice cream.
Enjoy this delicious pie as it would be yours!! Julia Recipes☺👌
faten
yummy! this looks divine!