Whole Wheat & Oatmeal Crust Apple Pie

It’s apple pie season. It’s an American classic and arguably the most popular kind of dessert pie. I’ll never say no to a slice of apple pie. The pleasure I get from a forkful of flaky, buttery crust topped with soft and sweet cinnamon-scented, apples with a hint of lemon never gets old or tired. The rains finally paving the way for a tiny hint of winter and loads of apples at my local vegetable store, put me in the mood for some warm apple pie.

The idea of experimenting with a whole grain pie crust has been on my mind for some time. My last attempt at a whole wheat crust didn’t go as expected and I was left with a very crumbly dough that I struggled and finally failed to bind. Then I read Stella Parks’s (award-winning pastry chef and author of BraveTart) brilliant piece on whole wheat pie crusts on www.seriouseats.com; it renewed my resolve to try a whole grain crust one more time. Her unique techniques gave me the confidence to bake an apple pie with a whole wheat and oatmeal crust. I employed many of her tips and tricks but not all, since her instructions were for A whole wheat and AP flour crust while mine had whole wheat and oatmeal (less gluten and less pliability) worked. Not only did my pie turn out to be beautiful and delicious, I also ended up learning a few small but significant tweaks to improve my pie making.

Pointers to get your pie right 

• Make sure all your ingredients – flours, butter, water are cold. Since I live by the sea with humidity being the enemy, I even chill my mixing bowl for 10 minutes before I begin. 
• Cut the butter into cubes for easy mixing. It must be slightly yielding but not soft. You should be able to smash it with a little pressure from your thumb.

• Parks’s tip of pushing the butter with your thumb rather than the traditional way of rubbing it into the flour, is genius. This prevents body heat from transferring to the butter through the fingertips, keeping the temperature of the dough down. Also, the splats of butter in the dough swell up in the oven creating flaky layers. 
• Whole wheat pie crusts need more water than crusts made with regular all-purpose flour. So for 250g of flour I used as many as 6 tbsps of cold water. It should help bind the dough enough to allow for rolling. But be careful not to put too much water as it will yield a sticky dough.

• I also took Park’s advice and rolled out the crust before chilling it for 2 hours. This helps the pie crust completely relax prior to baking. The traditional method requires the dough to be chilled for 30 minutes before rolling and shaping. 
• Since a whole grain pie crust is more fragile, I rolled it out on baking parchment.  So all I did to transfer it, was to place the pie dish upside down on the rolled-out dough and flip the parchment. Then I just gently tucked the crust to fit the dish and crimped the edges. 

• Like everyone else, I used to use dried beans to blind bake my pie shell. This time, I lined the shell with aluminium foil and used sugar to weigh it down. This way was much better since foil can be tucked into corners more easily than parchment, which tends to lift.

Crust chilling in the fridge, I set about making the apple filling. I used cooking apples – Granny Smith, because they’re firm, tart and crisp and hold up well retaining their shape even after baking. Gala, Fuji, Red Delicious and other firm and crisp varieties also work well. As you can see in the pictures, I sliced them slightly thick because I like my pies to have bite (slicing them very thinly can lead to them losing shape when the sugar and heat draw out their juices). These Granny Smiths were cooked enough to be tender without turning squishy. Their inherent sourness and the lemon juice I added, combined with the brown sugar and cinnamon, produce the right balance of sweet and tart. Just the way I like it. 

I tossed the apples in brown sugar, a few squeezes of lemon juice and 2 tsps of cornflour (to absorb the extra moisture, thicken the juice and prevent the crust from getting soggy. I allow the apples to sit in their sugar rub for 4-5 minutes to give up their juices. The moisture release at this stage prevents too much liquid accumulate during baking and helps the filling reach the right consistency quickly.

The chilled crust lined with foil and filled with sugar went into the oven for all of 10 short minutes. I then let the shell cool before piling in the filling, and I did pile it (I’m terrible at creating fancy patterns and other fiddly stuff). I drizzled some of the apple-y liquid remaining in the bowl onto the filling, like a glaze. The final baking took about 35-40 minutes at 180℃. Halfway through the baking, I checked in to ensure that the crust hasn’t burned and since my oven has a hot spot, I rotated the pie to ensure even browning.

This apple pie obviously, wasn’t as flaky as a regular flour crust would be but it was tender and buttery without being dry or stodgy. I had a huge slice of it for breakfast one morning and I’m not shy to say that my pie and I had a moment – joy and satisfaction in the delicious experience of sitting quietly and eating pie.