Would you like some pie with that?

Delicious Apple Pie with a Surprise Cheese Bottom

I know, I know, it sounds gross.  At least that was the face my sister made when I mentioned cheese in the pie.  But I hear it's pretty common in some parts of the world.  Also, I love eating cheese with apples, so cheese with apple pie is just an obvious next step.  It was delicious, though it also helps that the crust was homemade and I used real butter.  So very important.

From my last post you know I made a very chocolate heavy cake, so I wanted to balance it with something a little different and apples are a great fruit for winter baking.  Originally I wanted to bake something from my Tollhouse cookbook, but I couldn't find butterscotch chips at my local grocery store (they never seem to have anything I want, but it does force me to be creative).  So instead I bastardized the recipe and combined three different recipes to make my own.  Always a fun time.

I started with the crust because that has to sit in the freezer for a while.

Ingredients:
Crust:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup butter (cut into pieces and then put in the freezer for 10-20 minutes)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon
6-8 tsp ice cold water


Filling:
4 cups pared, cored and sliced apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup cheese, I used Mozarella but I hear sharp cheddar is more common


Topping:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
6 Tb butter chilled

First you want to cut up your butter for the crust into small pieces and then put them all in the freezer for about 15 to 20 minutes.  Really cold butter makes for a much flakier crust, and unlike with boys, flaky is a good thing here.  So after you let the butter sit in the freezer, mix the flour, salt, sugar, and cinnamon in a bowl.

Slowly, using a fork and not your hands (which is so hard for me to do, I love using my hands when I bake) press the frozen butter into the flour mixture until it's nice and crumbly:

Now you want to add in the cold water once tablespoon at a time until you get a nice doughy consistency that sticks together but isn't too wet.  You can add more flour or water if your consistency is off, but try not to add too much because the flour-butter ratio is important.  Once you have a good consistency shape it into a ball and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes while you work on the filling.  Now you can preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Because I don't want the apples to sit around too long after they've been cut (I hate when they start to turn brown) I make the topping next and leave the filling for last.  For the topping, mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.  Usually I recommend mixing everything but the butter together first and then adding in the butter.  Cut the butter into pieces and then rub it into the flour/sugar mixture with your hands until you get a nice crumbly mixture.  I guess this isn't that different from the pie crust except that here the heat from your hands isn't a bad thing and you have some sugar to make it sweet.

On to the filling.  Peel and slice up the apples.  If you make thin slices the apples will get softer, but there's no wrong way to cut them.  I like medium thickness so the apples don't just melt in your mouth, but if that's your taste then I say go for it.  In a bowl mix the sliced apples with the flour, sugar, and cinnamon.

Once the apples are evenly coated, let the mixture sit while you roll out the pie dough into a nice medium-thin crust.  I didn't have a rolling pin so I used a coffee can, but anything cylindrical will work.  Place the crust into a pie pan and trim the edges:

I rolled out the excess dough and cut leaf shapes out of it to decorate the edges but you can make any shapes you want (or none at all if you're anti-shapes).  Then I took my Mozzarella slices and layered them on the bottom of the crust.  You can skip that part, but I think the cheese added a nice and unusual quality to the pie.  After that you can pour the apple mixture into the crust.  I laid the apples out nicely, but they're going to be covered by the topping anyway so it doesn't really matter.  Sprinkle the topping over the apples until they're all covered, and then put the dough-leaves around the edge.

Cover in tin foil and bake for about 30 minutes, then uncover and bake it for another 20-25 minutes.  After 15 minutes you can check on it and decide when to take it out depending on how quickly the top and edges are browning.

Voila!

Tastiness awaits your happy mouth.  Now go and be fed.