Vermont · Dessert
Cheddar-Crusted Apple Pie
- Intermediate
- 2 h
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, acid holding everything up to the light, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- For the crust: 375g flour, 1 tsp salt, 225g cold butter, 150g sharp Vermont cheddar, grated, 6-8 tbsp ice water
- 1.2kg firm apples, peeled and sliced
- 150g sugar
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch of nutmeg and salt
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp butter
Equipment
Rolling pin · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Cut the butter into the flour and salt to coarse crumbs, work in the grated cheddar, then bring together with ice water. Chill 1 hour. 60 min
- Toss the apples with sugar, flour, spices, lemon, and salt.
- Roll out two-thirds of the pastry for the base, fill with apples, and dot with butter.
- Top with the remaining pastry, seal, vent, and brush with cream.
- Bake at 220C for 20 min, then 190C for 40 min until deep gold and bubbling. Cool 3 hours. 20 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes
- The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
- Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
- Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
- Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
- Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.
Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Moscato d’Asti
- Also Right
- Late-harvest Riesling
- From the Taps
- Witbier
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling elderflower
Citrus desserts need a wine sweeter than they are, with acid enough to keep up: light, frothy, and low-proof wins.
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