Apple Crumble Pie

Fall is finally here and what a spectacular scenery it is with its vibrant hues of orange, reds and yellows and gold. The mornings are a bit chillier and damp in Vancouver otherwise it is still a beautiful city to live in. I have not posted for a while and decided to do some catching up. Thanksgiving was just this past weekend and what a event it was as the city was decked out with pumpkin pies and turkeys. I am not a fan of pumpkin pies thus for Thanksgiving decided to make a apple crumble pie.

To make the pie, I first started out with a tart shell. Good old Christophe Felder, his tart recipe never fails. I baked the tart shells for approx 20 minutes at 350 degree oven.

Next I peeled some apples and added some cinnamon and brown sugar, flour to the mixture. Unlike most recipes that allow the apples to bake the in tart shell, I did the unconventional. I sauteed the apples in brown sugar first cooking them. I found the juices of the apples during cooking made a gooey mess thus decided to do this route.

Next I made the crumble. I combined the flour with the butter, sugar oatmeal and pecans together until it was fine. The tart was then topped out with the crumble. Baked it at 350 for approx 20 minutes.

Voila.

Apple Crumble Pie.

Filling
3 1/4 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Topping
1 cup walnuts or pecans, roughly chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch fine salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold butter, cut into small pieces

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!

Lemon Meringue Tartlettes

Wow, finally some good weather after a couple days of rain and dampness.  In light of the better weather, and the fact that it’s the weekend I decided to make some tarts.  With the extra meyer lemons I found lying around in the fridge, I decided to make lemon meringue tartlettes.

I have been learning about Italian Meringue and used it in the macaron baking but decided to use it in the lemon meringue pie.  We used it in pastry school and in my opinion found that it was less likely to seep out sugary water after baking or blow torching.  Yes, blow torching, guess that is the new convenient thing to caramelize sugar these days.

I first started out with the shell using a pate sable crust.  I altered the recipe a bit and instead of using the full amount of flour recommended by Le Cordon Bleu found on this link.  I substituted 2/3 of the flour for roasted coconut.  I found the nuts added richness and complexity to the recipe.  Next I made the filling and instead of using lemons, I opted for myer lemons.  They could be found at any supermarket.  Myer Lemons were a cross between lemons and mandarins and tend to be less sour and more floral.  Once done, I poured them onto the cooled tart shells.

Next I prepared the meringue…I was quite disappointed that I got side tracked with something else as I let the sugar syrup cool when beating the egg whites that it crystallized when hitting the cooler bowl.  I’ll remember next time to pour it in when it was warmer.  The purpose of the sugar syrup was to cook the meringues and perhaps stabilize them a bit.  Nonetheless, I still piped it out and broiled it to caramelize the meringue topping.

I did not included the recipe for this tart as you could find recipes on lemon meringue pie anywhere.