The Journey Begins

In the journey of baking through the recipe book "Pie" by Don Haedrich, I had to make some upfront decisions about where to start in the book. The first chapters deal with pie baking basics and crust recipes. While I have not baked all the crust recipes listed, I opted to delve immediately into the pie recipes.

The first pie chapter focuses on summer fruit pies. Mr. Haederich makes good points about using fresh fruit that is in season whenever possible. Being that we are squarely in the middle of Winter here in New Jersey, I decided to move on to Chapter 2 entitled "Make Mine Apple". I skipped the first recipe "Easiest Apple Pie" and moved on to what I considered to be the first real recipe, "Golden Delicious Apple Pie with Oatmeal Crumb Topping".

This recipe calls for Golden Delicious apples, which, as Mr. Haederich points out, gets a bad wrap mostly because of the quality of apple that you find in the store. For me a really good Golden Delicious has a taste that reminds me of pears yet has a bit of apple bite and tartness. A very interesting combination of taste sensations.

The recipe called for the standard ingredients of sugar, lemon juice, nutmeg, and cornstarch. The topping called for rolled oats, cinnamon, salt, and brown sugar all held together with butter. Interestingly, you baked the pie for about 30 minutes before adding the topping. Another 30 minutes or so and the pie was ready to take out of the oven.

Results: The oatmeal topping was excellent. It created the effect of having apple crisp in a pie shell. Unlike many recipes that call for a crumb topping, the measurements created an ample topping that nicely buried the apples underneath.

As for the filling, I was a little disappointed. Granted, the quality of the apples could be called into question. However, the filling seemed to lack a certain depth and snap that an apple pie should render. I use Golden Delicious Apples exclusively in a tart recipe that I found in Mark Bitten's NY Times' column and modified a bit. The tart recipe calls for brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I admit that I am used to a certain taste experience that is a result of that recipe. However, if I were to bake this pie again, I think I would replace the ingredients called for in "Pie" with Mr. Bitten's. My guess is that it would give the pie the needed depth and make it a real winner.

Out of a 5 star rating system, I would have to give this one a 3.