September: Time for Apple Pies!

Look at those ingredients.

Apples, caramels, cinnamon, flour, sour cream...

Is your mouth watering yet? Just wait until you see what my daughter Carrie did with this humble beginning!

The original name of this recipe is "Salted Caramel Apple Hand Pies," and even though Carrie only used caramel without the salt, I'll include it in the recipe in case you want to add it in.

She got this recipe from one of her favorite food blogs, Just a Taste. You'll have to go and browse through the site. There's some delicious looking stuff over there!

Meanwhile, here is Carrie's version:

Caramel Apple Hand Pies

ingredients:

For the pastry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter, cut into cubes
1/2 cup cold sour cream

Hmm, sour cream in the pastry dough? You bet! This dough turns out to be something in between a puff pastry and a pie crust. I couldn't believe how good it was!

For the filling:
2 cups Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced small - the size of corn kernels
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoon all-purpose flour
8 soft caramels, roughly chopped
Large flake sea salt (we left this out)
Egg wash (1 egg lightly whisked with 1 Tablespoon water)

directions:

First, make the dough.

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Add the cubed butter and work the butter into the flour with your fingers until it's the consistency of wet sand.

Stir in the sour cream - the dough will be very wet - and then turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface.

Knead the dough a few times until it's workable, adding more flour a little at a time as needed if the dough is too sticky to handle.

Roll the dough into an 8x10 inch rectangle, dust both sides with flour again, and then fold it in thirds, as if you're folding a letter.

Rotate the dough 90° and roll it out again into an 8x10 inch rectangle. Fold the dough again into thirds then wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes while you make the filling.

The Filling:

In a small bowl, combine the apples, lemon juice, cinnamon, sugar and flour, stirring until thoroughly mixed. Set the bowl aside.

By the way, Carrie only had to use one apple to get two cups of pieces. Those were big apples!

Ignore the pieces of caramel mixed with the apples.
They're supposed to go in later. 

Assemble the Pies:

Preheat your oven to 425°.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator, unwrap, and unfold it onto a well-floured surface. Roll it out to a 14x14 inch square.

Using a 3" diameter cup or cookie cutter, cut out as many circles as possible. Re-roll the scraps and continue cutting out circles until you run out of dough, making sure you end up with an even number of circles.

You should have about 20 circles.

Place about 6 circles on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spoon a small portion of the apple filling into the center of each circle, leaving a border around the filling. Top the apple filling with a portion of the chopped caramels (and a pinch of the sea salt, if you're making the salted caramel variety).

Place a second dough circle on top of each filled circle, then use a fork to crimp the edges together, sealing each pie.

Brush each pie with the egg wash, and using a sharp knife, cut two or three vents on the top of each pie. Repeat on another baking sheet with the rest of the dough circles.

Bake the pies for about 15 minutes, or until they're golden brown. Remove them from the oven and let them rest about 10 minutes before serving.

We had ours with vanilla ice cream.

But they really didn't need it. The crust is so rich and creamy, and the filling perfectly delicious, that they're just the thing to eat, well, "out of hand!"

So with apple season here and pumpkin season right around the corner, do you have a favorite? Are you an apple pie person or a pumpkin spice person?