APPLE PIE

COOKS WHO SLATHER THE APPLES DESTINED for a pie with cinnamon, sugar, and a starchy thickener do themselves and the apples a disservice, so we set out to make a pie that lets the apples shine. We started by examining the variety of apple to use for the filling. We tested the nine best-selling varieties, figuring that we wanted a recipe that would work with apples commonly available in supermarkets throughout the year.

We determined that Granny Smith and McIntosh both have excellent qualities; the former is tart with good texture and the latter has excellent flavor. But each of them also has drawbacks. A pie made with Grannies alone was too sour and a bit dull-tasting, while an all-McIntosh pie was too soft, more like applesauce than apple pie. A pie made with both varieties, however, was outstanding. The Grannies hold up well during cooking, the Macs add flavor, and the mushy texture of the Macs becomes a virtue in this setting, providing a nice base for the harder Grannies and soaking up some of the juice.

If you are making this pie during the fall apple season, when many local varieties may be available, follow the recipe using all Macoun, Royal Gala, Empire, Winesap, Rhode Island Greening, or Cortland apples. Unlike the Granny Smith, these are well-balanced apples that work well on their own without thickeners or the addition of McIntosh.

We have always used butter in our pies. In fact, we once used up to six tablespoons in a deep dish pie, cutting this back to a more modest two tablespoons over the years. But when we taste-tested pies with and without butter this time, the leaner pies won hands down. Butter actually dulls the fresh taste of the apples. Lemon juice, however, is absolutely crucial to a good apple pie. With a proper balance of sweet and tart, a good apple pie tastes like a crisp October morning rather than a muggy August afternoon. In the end, we settled on 1¹/₂ tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of zest.

Even a cursory review of apple pie recipes reveals a wide range of preferences for thickeners, with flour, tapioca, and cornstarch being the most common. We did try flour and tapioca and found that they overthickened the pie. A bit of tart, thin juice gives the pie a breath of the orchard, whereas a thick, syrupy texture is dull. In the end, we opted not to thicken the filling for our apple pie.

Many cookbook writers claim that letting apples sit in a bowl with the sugar, lemon juice, and spices, otherwise known as macerating, is key to developing flavor and juice. We found, however, that this simply caused the apples to dry out, making them rubbery and unpleasant. In addition, the apples themselves lost flavor, having exuded all of their fruitiness into the juice. So macerating, a common step in apple pie making, was clearly out.

In many apple pies, the top crust sets up quickly, leaving an air space between it and the apples, which reduce in volume as they cook. With our crust recipe, however, this is not an issue. Sufficient shortening is cut into the flour so that the crust sinks down onto the apples as they cook. We did notice, however, that this high ratio of shortening produces a very flaky crust, one that is not easily cut into perfect slices. In addition, because there is still a fair amount of juice, which we find essential for good flavor, the filling may spread slightly once the pie is cut into individual slices.