A few months ago my friend Eva (of Adventures in Cooking, see her beautiful post here) came to visit our farm. We had the best time catching up, playing with kittens and baking this insanely delicious pie from Linda Lomelino’s new cookbook, Lomelino’s Pies. It was quite honestly one of the best pies I’ve had. The cinnamon roll crust is genius (I mean, so genius) and it’s filled with sweet apples sautéed in dulce de leche. Eva and I finished shooting just as the sun was going down on the hill behind the barn in the crunchy fall leaves, then went inside to warm up and immediately devoured the pie.
I’ve loved Linda’s work long before I started blogging and was so excited to get my hands on this book. It’s definitely a must-have for anyone who loves cookbooks, beautiful photography and, of course, pie 🙂 Not being much of a pie baker, I was surprised at how easy and straightforward this very complicated-looking recipe was. We took our time and spent the better part of the afternoon on it, but if you were a bit more focused than we were it would’ve been much quicker work. But honestly, what better way to spend an afternoon than in the kitchen baking with a friend?
This post is up a bit (okay a lot) later than I planned, but we’ve had quite the last few months. The weeks after our shoot I found myself with my nose in my books studying for finals, then Christmas happened in a blink. We spent ours at home in Washington for the first time, and it snowed. Not just a little, like inches. I nearly didn’t make it home from the store on Christmas Eve. I don’t have the words to tell you what a gift it was to spend our first Christmas in our home watching my husband and son building snowmen that somehow looked more like Egyptian pyramids (?). Friends came over for a really informal dinner and we ended the evening drinking whiskey around a bonfire.
In other news, we got a baby pig. He’s 7 weeks old, pinkish with the sweetest black spots and he’s seriously just the best. He walked in and immediately owned the place, I caught him eating out of the dog’s bowl while poor Ollie looked at me with the most confused face….my 45 lb dog is compleetely intimidated by the little pig taking over his space. Moose mostly grunts until he’s fed 6 times a day and snoozes in front of the fire in the dog bed, occasionally getting up to scratch himself on whatever object is close enough…not unlike this video, if you haven’t seen it. In the evenings he roots at my feet or nibbles my toes until I stop what I’m doing to sit down and hold him, it’s a sweet reminder that whatever I was doing was likely not as important as cuddling a warm, fuzzy piglet. I hope you are all surviving these last weeks of winter (hello, vitamin D!) and if it’s a struggle, make this pie and I promise it’ll help.
- Pie crust
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 16 tablespoons (8 ounces) cold butter
- 5 - 7 tablespoons ice-cold water
- Apple filling
- 2¾ pounds apples
- 2 tablespoons (1 ounce) butter
- ¾ cup dulce de leche
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 4 tablespoons corn starch
- 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
- Crust filling
- 5 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- Glaze
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon milk
- pinch of sea salt
- 1-2 tablespoons pearl sugar or raw cane sugar
- Mix the flour, granulated sugar, and salt in a bowl. Dice the butter and add it to the flour mixture. Use your fingers to pinch in the butter until the dough is crumbly.
- Add the water (begin with the smaller amount and gradually add more if the dough feels too dry) and mix it in with a fork. If you pick up a bit of the dough and it coheres when pressed together, it has enough water.
- Lay a piece of plastic wrap over the dough, flatten the dough somewhat, and then cover the dough completely with plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight.
- Peel and core the apples. Cut them into thin slices and place them in a large bowl.
- Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the apple slices and sauté them for 2 to 3 minutes, until the apples soften slightly. Carefully stir occasionally.
- Add the dulce de leche, cinnamon, and salt. In a small cup, dissolve the cornstarch in the orange juice and stir it into the saucepan. Let the mixture simmer over low heat as you stir for a few more minutes, until the mixture has thickened. Let the filling cool completely.
- Preheat the oven to 435 degrees fahrenheit.
- For the crust filling, mix the butter with the cinnamon and cardamom. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and divide it into two equal pieces. On a floured work surface, roll out one half of the dough into a rectangle 16 x 14 inches. Spread this dough with half the butter mixture and roll it up from the long side. Repeat with the other half of the dough and the remainder of the crust filling. Place the rolls on a cutting board and place them in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes.
- Remove one roll from the freezer and cut it into ¼-inch thick slices (just as if you were making cinnamon buns). Fill a pie pan with the slices, covering the bottom and sides (the pieces should have a little space between them). Press the slices together so that they form a pie shell. Transfer the pie pan to the freezer.
- Take the other roll out of the freezer and cut it in the same way, but arrange the pieces in a circle (large enough to cover the top of the pie pan) on top of a sheet of parchment paper. Place another sheet of parchment paper on top and roll the sheet to make all the slices stick together. If the slices don't want to adhere, you can brush a little water between them. Peel the top sheet of parchment paper off.
- Take the pie shell out of the freezer and pour in the apple filling. Brush the edge with a little water and add the top crust. It is easiest to leave the crust on the remaining bottom sheet of parchment paper and place it over the pie filling, paper-side up, and then peel off the parchment. Cut away any overhang, leaving a rim about 1¼-inch wide if you want to make a decorative edge. Put the pie in the freezer for 15 minutes (to help it hold its shape better in the oven while baking).
- Remove the pie from the freezer. To make the glaze, whisk the egg, milk, and salt in a small bowl. Brush the pie dough with the egg mixture and sprinkle the pearl sugar on top.
- Bake the pie on the lower rack of the oven to 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees fahrenheit and bake for another 45 to 50 minutes, until the piecrust is golden brown. Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool completely. Serve the pie with vanilla ice cream, if desired.
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Barbara Demczuk says
What size pie dish did you use?
ohhoneybakes says
I’m so sorry I missed this! It’s a 9 inch, I believe. Happy baking 🙂