Haedrich - Apple pie perfect: 100 delicious and decidedly different recipes for Americas favorite pie

The Harvard Common Press
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Boston, Massachusetts 02118
www.harvardcommonpress.com

Copyright 2002 by Ken Haedrich
Photographs copyright 2002 by Eric Roth Photography
Illustrations copyright 2002 by Linda Hillel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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Printed in the United States of America

Printed on acid-free paper

The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows:
Haedrich, Ken.

Apple pie perfect : 100 delicious and decidedly different recipes for America's
favorite pie / Ken Haedrich.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-55832-224-8 (cloth : alk. paper)ISBN 1-55832-225-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Pies. 2. Cookery (Apples) I. Title.
TX773.H218 2002
641.8'652dc21
2002017262
Reprint ISBN: 978-1-55832-742-9 (pbk.)

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Cover and interior design by Night & Day Design
Front cover photograph by Sabra Krock; food styling by Mariana Velasquez
All text photographs (except for that of author's parents on p. v)
by Eric Roth Photography; food styling by Mary Banderek
Illustrations by Linda Hillel

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For reasons I've tried to make clear in the introductionamong many other reasonsthis book is dedicated, with love and appreciation, to my parents, Warren and Muriel Haedrich. This is their wedding picture, taken in Indiana shortly before my dad shipped out for combat duty in World War II. Notice the calm, content expression of a young couple blissfully ignorant of the challenges of raising a child, let alone seven of them, as they would so valiantly do. That was 58 years ago, and I'm happy to say that they're still sitting arm in arm, looking every bit as happy and young at heart as they do here.

I seem to thank a lot of the same people from book to booksome simply for putting up with me, others whom I have had the ongoing pleasure of working with on a regular basis for many years, and still others who have been particularly helpful in the evolution of the book in question. For this book they include:

Nancy Wall Hopkins, Karen Pollock, and Anna Anderson at Better Homes and Gardens.

Kristine Kidd, Barbara Fairchild, Sarah Tenaglia, Anthony Head, Katie O'Kennedy, and Victoria von Biel at Bon Apptit.

Cindy Littlefield at Family Fun; working with you is always a pleasure.

David Sokol at Disney Magazine; I'm ready for another trip to Florida anytime you are.

Georgia Orcutt, formerly of Yankee.

Susan Peery at digitalhearth.com.

Sheila Buckmaster, Jayne Wise, and my other friends at National Geographic Traveler.

Kathy Farrell Kingsley at Vegetarian Times.

Patsy Jamieson, once and now again at Eating Well.

For her wonderful apples and time on the phone I thank Betsy King of Michigan's King Orchards. Similarly, I'd like to thank Bob and Susan Jasse of New Hampshire's Alyson's Apple Orchard for the generosity of their delicious apples. And a tip of my hat to my old friends Mike and Nancy Phillips for the great apple and elderberry pie recipe you'll find on .

Early in my writing career, Marion Cunninghamyou know her better as the Fannie Farmer cookwas uncommonly generous with her kind words, encouragement, and telephone calls. Thanks so much.

In addition, I want to thank my agent, Meg Ruley, and Don Cleary, both of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, for more of their usual fine work on my behalf.

Large slices of gratitude to Bruce Shaw, Pam Hoenig, Valerie Cimino, and the staff of the Harvard Common Press for really getting behind this book; I think it looks wonderful.

My childrenBen, Tess, Ali, and Samhave given my life purpose, direction, and more joy than they know. An occasional headache, toobut nothing personal, right? Thanks for never turning down yet another slice of apple pie.

Love to Cindy C., Sam and Karen, Jonathan and Lauren for insisting I do a section on easy pies made with someone else's crust, and Dave, Laurie, Alexa, and Nick for the wonderful meals we've shared. Of course, love and gratitude to my siblingsJoe, Barb, Tom, Bill, Joanne, and Maryfor everything we've shared over the years. And to my wonderful parents, Warren and Muriel, to whom this book is dedicated.

Lastly, love to Bev for sharing your lifeand far too many apple pie calorieswith me. But do explain: why is it that my slices of apple pie go right to my waist and yours are nowhere to be found? It's just not fair.

Why a book of 100 apple pie recipes? That's a perfectly reasonable question, and I probably have as many answers for it as I do, well, recipes for apple pie. But I doubt I could say it better than the eminent horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey, who addressed the issueif only by extension, and one step shy of the ovenin his 1922 book The Apple Tree:

Why do we need so many kinds of apples? Because there are so many folks. A person has a right to gratify his legitimate taste. If he wants twenty or forty kinds of apples for his personal use, running from Early Harvest to Roxbury Russet, he should be accorded the privilege.... There is merit in variety itself. It provides more contact with life, and leads away from uniformity and monotony.

Which is to say that we need a book full of apple pie recipes because taste is indeed a very personal matter and variety is the spice of life. You may like a saucy apple pie with very little spice and a top crust. I, on the other hand, might prefer firmer apples, lots of spice, and a crumb topping. Is my pie better than yours? Certainly notno more than my choice of religion or automobile or hometown is better than yours. Every apple pie has its merits, as the writer reminds us, and reflects a set of biases and circumstances unique to the pie maker himself. And if no collection of apple pie recipes could speak to all those biases and individual situations, it's certainly my hopein casting the widest of nets over the subject of apple piethat I've made America's favorite pie more accessible to a wide range of home cooks than anyone before me.

O KAY Y OU'VE M ADE Y OUR P OINT , B UT I' M A B EGINNER . C AN I R EALLY L EARN TO B AKE A G REAT A PPLE P IE ?

In a perfect world, all of us would have been blessed with good baking genesand given the popularity of apple pie, those precise genes required to roll out a respectable-looking pie pastry. Alas, as one who has spent a good part of his career writing books and articles devoted to the subject of baking and given numerous baking classes, workshops, and demonstrations, I'm here to tell you that there are many among us who believe that making an apple pie they can be proud of requires a set of skills that's beyond their reach. To which I say, that's a lot of hooey.

Put another way, making a gorgeous, delicious apple pie is one of the easiest tricks in the home cook's bag of kitchen skills. Loan me any 10-year-old for a couple of hours, and I'll teach him to make an apple pienot because I'm such a great teacher, but because there's nothing to it: you mix a pastry, roll the pastry, prepare the filling, put it in the pie shell, and bake it. In one session, you can master 90 percent of what you need to know. Beyond that, it's just a matter of refining the basic steps, like rolling the pastry nice and round and knowing when your pie is baked to perfection. You may be surprised at how quickly these skills can be acquired, especially when you're new to pie baking and able to build rapidly on the lessons you learn. Just imagine, if you bake one apple pie a week, or two a month, that's 25 or 50 pies you will make in the coming year. At the end of the year, I guarantee you'll be the best apple pie maker on your blockand you'll have more friends than you'll know what to do with.