October 14-15, 2024
We’re not sure where we got the idea to add lavender to an apple pie, but wow! it really works! We use the Cook’s Illustrated Apple Pie recipe and add 1.5 tablespoons of lavender to it. Our handyman brought us a bag of what might be Braeburn apples, so we had to make a pie!
It took us a couple of days to make one of our favorites, Lavender Apple Pie. Trying to make the crust, filling and baking the pie in one day just doesn’t work out.
Starting the crust. It turns out that to make a really good flakey crust, you can’t let the food processor do all the work. That much butter chopping would start to develop the gluten in the flour and make the crust tough.
Both butter and Crisco are needed.
Final buzz in the food processor.
Things got hectic, so this is only some of the mise en place. In the bowl at the left are the sugar, lavender, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
The filling is all mixed together and piled high!
Putting on the top crust and Livingstone supervises from on high!
We like a well baked crust and not to worry, it really isn’t burnt!
That Martin forgot to get a movie of this peeler-corer in action. It’s a modern reproduction of the original and it really works! It uses modern stainless steel, so its really easy to clean. This makes peeling that pile of apples fast enough so that the pie isn’t too much work.
The first piece is really difficult when the crust is properly flakey.
The second and later pieces look much nicer, but that crust is, as promised, flakey!