An tetanus shot for an apple pie

Wow, I can't believe this never made it to the blog, the post has been ready since last October... Oh well, better late than never I guess, here goes:

I had a bunch of beautiful organic Golden Delicious apples and had just purchased myself a new gizmo, the apple "peeler, corer, slicer", as shown below.



The planets all seemed perfectly alligned for a perfect apple pie day. I make my dough, chill it, roll it, prepare all my ingredients for the filling, all that is left to do, is the apples.

The machine worked great. It worked great on the apples. It also worked great on my right index finger.

Truth be told, it was really my fault. One of the apples got stuck (the very last one, go figure), and like an idiot, I pushed it forward... and jammed my index right into the "corer-peeler" blade. Made myself a pretty nasty and log cut, too.

But we writers are made of solid stuff--I wasn't going to allow something like a gushing finger ruin Dave's apple pie. I rinsed my finger, dunked it in Neosporin and bandaged it tight to stop the bleeding. Then I decided to simply pretend it didn't happen just for long enough to put on a latex glove on my right hand, discard the bloody apple, and toss the previous ones in the sugar and spices so they wouldn't waste.

Only then, did I tell Dave what happened, and we went to the hospital.

The good news was that the nurse told me I had done a good job bandaging the wound. The bleeding had stopped, and it looked as good as it could be expected considering it just got peeled and cored. She disinfected it again, added a few self resorbing strips in lieu of stitches, and made a new bandage. The bad news was that I needed a tetanus shot.

The shot in itself was nothing. side effects were another story. I have been down right miserable for 3 days, with over 100.5 temperatures, flu-like symptoms, extreme tiredness, and a lot of pain in my left arm (the one that got the shot). It felt like it had been hit by a truck. A large truck. Repeatedly.

Between the arm on the left and the hand on the right, it's been an interesting week so far. Oh, well. At least the pie was good (recipe follows).


"Bloody" good apple pie:

For the crust, put the following in the bowl of your food processor:

2 1/2 cups of KAF Mellow Pastry Blend flour (*), 3/4 tsp. salt, 2 Tbsp. buttermilk powder, 2 Tbsp sugar. Pulse a few times to mix everything, then add 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, that you previously cut into 1/4 cubes and froze for half an hour. (You can also do half butter half shortening, but imho nothing beats the taste of an all butter crust.)

Using a few short pulses, process the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Leave chunks of butter about the size of small peas in the dough. Sprinkle with the smallest amount of water (8-10 Tbsp of ice water), then pulse again, once or twice. Feel the dough to see if you can squeeze it together (careful for the blade). If necessary, add a little more water until the dough holds together.

Just be sure to have a light finger on the pulse button, it's easy to over process and thus thoughen the crust once you've added the fat and the water.

Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and divide it in half. Flatten it to 2 thick disks, flour them and wrap them well, and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until you're ready to use them.

(*) you can also add all unbleached all-purpose flour; you'll need to add a bit more water to the crust, and it'll be slightly less tender).

For the filling, you need:

About 2lbs of the apples of your choice, peeled, cored and sliced. (the blood is optional); 2 tsp. lemon juice; 3 Tbsp. cornstarch or 3 Tbsp. Instant Clearjel, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, 1 cup of sugar, 2 Tbsp. butter, 1/4 cup of boiled cider (or golden syrup if you don't have any boiled cider), 1 Tbsp of vanilla extract.

Put the apples in a large bowl, and sprinkle them with the lemon juice as soon as they are peeled and sliced. In a small bowl, whisk together the cornstarch or clearjel with the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg until it's well mixed. Add this dry mixture to the apples, and stir to combine. Thoroughly combine the apples and dry ingredients. Then add the boiled cider and vanilla extract.

Ready to roll:

Remove one piece of dough from the refrigerator. If it's been in the fridge longer than 30 minutes, allow it to rest at room temperature, covered, for about 10-15 minutes, until it's cool, but flexible enough to handle.

Roll the dough to at least 12 inches in diameter, and gently transfer to 9-inch pie pan (I use an enameled stoneware pan). Once it's nestled in the pan, don't stretch it! stretching and tugging pie crusts is why it slides down the sides and puddles in the bottom of the pan while the pie is baking.

Spoon the apple mixture into the crust.

Roll out the remaining piece of crust, just like you did the first piece. Lay it over the filling, making sure it completely covers the edges of the bottom crust. Trim off the excess, leaving about 1/2 inch all around to work with. Seal the edges on the top and bottom crust together by brushing the edge of the bottom crust with water, then folding the edges under and crimping with your fingers or with a fork to seal. Slice a few steam vents in the top crust. Brush with milk (or an egg-wash) and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake the pie in a preheated 450°F oven for 15 minutes, reduce the oven heat to 350°F and continue to bake for an hour or longer, until it's as brown as you like. If the edges brown too much while baking, cover them with a pie shield or foil. Be sure to place a parchment or foil lined cookie sheet below the pie to catch any drippings that boil out.

It's best to wait until the pie has completely cooled off before you eat it, to leave the filling time to set.

The picture at the top is not "my" picture, but it's the picture of the original recipe, and your pie will look just like that.

Enjoy!