Slice of Pie

In case you are wondering, yes, I intentionally made the title sound like the movie. But unlike the movie, this post has nothing existential to offer, nothing at all, and reading this will not change your life. I merely want to tell you that I made pie. Apples, if you must know what exactly it was made of. It was not perfect, I will admit that much. I put too much lemon juice, I think. I mean, I know I put too much lemon juice and it made my pie too, er, tart. But it had one heck of a crust. The recipe, technically called pate brisee, was from Martha Stewart, and it came out perfect. The texture was nicely flaky and the flavor quite lovely. If something saved that pie, I say it would be that pie crust. So I will make pie again. The same crust of course, and perhaps, again with apples, but I will cut down the lemon juice.

My apple pie despite its shortcomings got finished, by the way. I made it edible, even delicious I dare say, by topping each slice of pie with some luscious sweet dulce de leche before serving. Interestingly, I made the dulce de leche for something else, but that story is for another post. In the meantime, here is Martha's recipe for Pate Brisee (Don't fret if you do not have a food processor. I didn't. I simply used 2 knives to cut the butter into the flour, until I got the required consistency.):

Pate Brisee

Yield
Makes two 8- to 10-inch single-crust pies or one 8- to 10-inch double-crust pie

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut in pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Directions
Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and process for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 10 seconds. With the machine running, add the ice water in a slow, steady stream, through the feed tube, just until the dough holds together. Do not process for more than 30 seconds.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Divide in two. Place each half on a sheet of plastic wrap. Flatten, and form two discs. Wrap, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before using.

Source: http://www.marthastewart.com/343815/pate-brisee

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