Deep Dish Dutch Apple Pie

This is a "Dutch" [deep dish] apple pie. There are two (thousand) schools of thought on cooking pies: pre-bake the crust or… don't.

This one doesn't (prebake) and later I'll do another one that does (blind bake); and I'll make my own pie crust (at times I am overly ambitious).

This recipe is derived from the old classic The Joy of Cooking by Becker.

No picture because again today this is a planned cooking project and I'll report on success, failure and adjustments later when I actually cook this thing -maybe on Monday or Tuesday.

Ingredients

• 1 pie crust (bought or made)

Apple mix

• 6 C apples (7 or so), Granny Smith
  
• 125 g sugar, white (½ C)
  
• 1 pinch salt (1/8 t)
• 1 T cornstarch
• ¼ t cinnamon
• 1 pinch nutmeg (1/8 t)
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper (¡surprise¡)
  

On top

• 1½ T butter (not margarine)
• 1 T lemon juice, fresh, please
• ½ t lemon rind (from the same lemon)
• 1 t vanilla (real extract preferred but a good artificial one will do)
  
• 2 T sugar
• ¼ t cinnamon
  

Procedure

1. Oven at 225C [450F]
   
2. Peel, core and thinly slice apples
   
3. Put the crust in a tall pie tin (not a regular flat one, a deep dish one)
   
• crust reaching the top edge and slightly higher
• then put your thumb just under the edge and push down the pastry to form a slightly bulged rim
  
4. Sift sugar, salt, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne over the apples
• toss
• wait
• toss again
  
• until nicely coated and no dry ingredients are left in the bottom of the bowl
  
5. Layer apples into pie shell
6. Put dabs of butter on top
7. Sprinkle with lemon juice / vanilla and lemon rind
8. Bake for 10 minutes at 225C
9. Lower temp to 175C [350C]
10. Bake for another 35 minutes
11. Check for doneness
12. Maybe bake another 10
    

Notes

• Don't stretch the pie crust when laying it into the pan
  
• I'll probably use an oven at 250C [475F] continuously (because it'll be baked in a wood-fired oven and the temperature is not all too controllable);
  
• covered with aluminum foil for 20 minutes and then uncovered for another 20.
  
• Yes, really, cayenne pepper. Very little. it will just be enough to trigger some flavour sensations in your mouth. You won't really know it's there; but you'll think that something interesting is going on. Besides I half have a rule that there should be some cayenne in almost every dish.
• I really ought to get myself one of those spiral apple peeler devices
  
• It's worth a shot.