Grandma's Apple Pie 2.0

A friend of mine once told me that if you like to drink, you have to like to eat. I think that if you like to eat, you have to like to cook. Thus if you like to drink, you have to like to cook. So, pour yourself a mint julep and get thee to the kitchen.

I like pie (in all of its myriad forms). The two best kinds of pie are Euphemism Pie followed distantly by pecan pie. Bronze medalist? Apple pie. Try this:

White Pepper, Cardamom Apple Pie

First Make the Crust
2 3/4 Cups of Flour
1 Teaspoon Sugar
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 1/4 Sticks of Butter straight from the fridge and cut into tiny pieces
5ish Tablespoons of Ice Water

Put the dry ingredients and the pieces of butter into a mixing bowl. Blend by hand with a pastry blender or pulse in a food processor (if you're lazy). The mixture should not be smooth. It should remind you of the stuff left at the bottom of a can of nuts when you're done with the pieces worth eating.

Slowly drizzle the Ice Water over the mixture. Using the blade edge of a spatula, slice into the mixture at different angles until it starts to form larger balls. When these balls stick together with slight pressure, you've got enough water. Roll the mixture into two balls and put it in the fridge.

Then Make the Filling

5 Cups Apples (Sweet Ones), cored peeled and sliced.
1/4 to 1 Cup of Sugar depending on how sweet you like it.
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup of Dark Rum
Juice of 1 Lemon
Healthy Dashes of Cardamom, Coriander, and Cinnamon

Mix it all in a bowl and let it stand.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Then Finish the Crust

Roll the dough out into two flat round sheets. Form one into the pan for a lower crust. Trim the edges off with a paring knife once it's in the pie pan. Cut the other into strips to make a lattice top. You can weave them together if you like, or you can just have one row going one way and one row the other.

Fill and Bake

Pour the liquid off of the filling mixture into a hot saute pan and let it reduce to syrup. Meanwhile, back at the pie, put the apples into the crust. Then, pour the syrup over the apples. Dot the top of the pie with a tablespoon or two of butter chunks. Put the lattice over the top and push the crusts together with your thumb or a fork. Bake it for 20 minutes at 425 degrees. Turn it down to 350, and bake for another 20-30 minutes or until a rich bubbly fruit syrup starts bubbling up over the lattice.

Take it out, and let it cool for a few hours.

Eat it with a healthy serving of Eiswein or Trokenbeerenauslese from Germany (Dr. Hugo Thanisch or Wegeler from the Bernkasteler Doctor Vineyard if you can find it).