Rex Roof

Bacon Apple Pie

Just to be clear, this blog is mainly for me to document what I did, when. I’m not really writing it to provide other people with the means to recreate anything, nor am I suggesting that anyone would WANT to recreate anything I’ve made. I just want to have a document to refer to when I’m trying to remember how I made something that I vaguely remember from months passed.

Now: Bacon Apple Pie. Never have I been struck with a sense of “you know what this really needs? …” as I was last week when I tasted a slice of Granny Smith apple pie that my classmates had made. Maybe it was because I had just sampled some of Benton’s Smokey Bacon a few days before, but I immediately thought of how well some of that bacon would go with this pie. I couldn’t shake the idea, so I had to go with it.

I have to say, every time I’ve attempted to put bacon in baked goods in the past, it has been a dismal failure. A batch of bacon fat swedish cookies from the NYTimes magazine were a particular failure. I think I personally have a strange physiological aversion to bacon fat. Not bacon itself, but the fat. If I eat bacon, I’m happy; if I eat something with bacon fat in it, I feel weird in my brain. I already had an idea of how I wanted to accomplish bacon apple pie, but looking on the internet to see what other people did came up with some really gross concoctions that would be filled with bacon fat. (See this and this)

Okay, here is what I did:

Bacon: I used Benton’s Smokey bacon. I just ordered some of it in the mail and it is fantastic. I cooked it until just barely done, drained on paper towels, and then diced it into the smallest cubes I could.

Pie Crust: King Arthur Flour’s Pie Crust Recipe. I used this recipe almost verbatim. I used a combination of 3oz whole wheat pastry flour and the rest all purpose flour. I also made this in the stand mixer with the paddle attachment. I whisked the flour and the salt by hand, put the bowl in the mixer on low, added the shortening until it was in smaller bits, then added the bigger, already cut into pats. In the past, when doing this by hand, I would freeze the butter and cut it into tiny cubes, but just using refrigerated butter in the mixer seems to work just as well. I also just added tablespoons of ice water until the dough came away from the bowl.

Apple Filling: I using entirely granny smith apples, I used a recipe from my baking book for class. The recipe was for 9lbs of apples and multiple pies, so I had to scale it down using a calculator and guessing on the smaller ingredients. The recipe called for 4100 grams of apples, sliced and tossed with lemon juice. I peeled, cored and sliced 5 granny smith apples. I ended up with 969 grams of apple slices, so I did the math on the recipe to get the rest of my weights. In a separate bowl, mix together 213 grams of sugar, 21 grams of cornstarch, 2 grams of salt, 2 grams of cinnamon, 1/2 gram of nutmeg.  Admittedly, my scale isn’t precise enough to accurately measure 2 grams of something, let alone a half of a gram.  I compensated for these inaccuracies with common sense.  Now, I mixed all of these things right in with the apples without pre-mixing.  I also did this about 30 minutes before assembling the pie.  When I make this pie again, I’m going to leave the apples sitting in the lemon juice until just before I prep the pie.  That way I don’t end up with a bunch of liquid from the apples sitting in the bottom of the pie crust, making it soggy before baking.  Also, pre-mixing the ingredients separately ensures that the cornstarch is well-distributed with the sugar.

Crumble Topping: I used a random recipe from the internet. I was going for just sugar, butter and flour. I also used a teaspoon of bacon fat. Here’s how it went: In a bowl: 3/4 cup of AP flour, 3/4 cup of sugar, 5 tablespoons of butter, cut into pats, 1 teaspoon bacon fat, room temperature. I tossed this well to combine all the dry ingredients and then smushed the butter in until it had a chunky sand consistency. Then I added the best part, 1/4 cup bacon, finely diced. Mincing would work, too.

Assembling: I took the pie dough out of the fridge, rolled it out and formed it into a 9″ pie pan. I placed the apples into the crust, arranging them with a little more in the center than on the edges, especially if it is over flowing much. I sprinkled the crumble topping on top, I didn’t use it all because I had a bit too much.

Baking: Place the pie in a pre-heated 400° oven. Place something foil-lined on the rack below the pie to catch any overflow from the pie as it cooks.

So here was the problem: The center of the pie didn’t get hot enough to cause the cornstarch to coagulate. When we cut this open after cooling, it was a liquidy mess.  I should have known better! I knew the center of the pie wasn’t getting very hot because I had taken its temperature when the crust first started to look browned enough. Harold McGee says that cornstarch thickens between 140 and 180°. Next time I’ll watch the internal temperature to make sure it’s well within that range. I poured some of the liquid out of the pie and put it on the stove in a pan.  In 5 minutes I had a beautiful apple cinnamon jelly.  If only that had happened inside the pie! I think with a covering of foil to protect the crust and the topping for the first 20 minutes or so, I could have had a perfectly baked pie. I’m also unsure if the bacon fat in the crumble was completely necessary. I’m definitely going to make this pie again and try it get it just right.

As an aside: I had extra pie dough so I searched the freezer for something to bake into it. I found an opened bag of frozen mango chunks. I minced a decent amount of ginger, smashed the ginger into the cutting board with a tablespoon of sugar, tossed it with the mango. Then I heated this up over a low flame just to cook some some juices out of the mango and/or remove a bit of the freeze. I rolled out a circular crust and placed the mango on top. I folded it over and crimped the crust. Baked on a cookie sheet until it was nice and brown. Maybe 35 minutes.
This mango pie was delicious and definitely needs revisiting.