PIE-A-DAY #28
This pie comes to us from Shannon O’Malley and Keith Wilson or Apocalypse Cakes. The two maintain their website and also published a cook book – Apocalypse Cakes: Recipes for The End.
If we’re all going to drown in an epic sea of warm trash we should enjoy some Global Warming Hot Apple Pie. This is what my friend Keith and I were thinking when we made this pie one weekend. We’d been working on our “art” project, Apocalypse Cakes, for about 6 months and after making other pies and cakes in homage to apocalyptic eventualities (Resurrection Day Self-Rising Chocolate Cake, Raining Blood Red Velvet Cake, etc.) we wanted to address global warming. (It was an appropriate 100 degrees outside when we cooked this, btw.)
After going through the usual rigamarole of baking a pie, we took it out of the oven and put it on my window ledge to let it cool. Then we turned on some gay house music from the ’90s, sang along and took some photos of our pie, knowing later that I would replace the image’s background with a picture of a city engulfed by the sea.
I loved this damed pie, and I’m glad it made it into our cookbook, Apocalypse Cakes: Recipes for the End. Below are my deeper thoughts about Global Warming Hot Apple Pie, along with its recipe.
Ingredients
Crust:
2 1/2 cups white flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1
4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cold butter broken into small pieces
5 tbsp. cold vegetable shortening
8 tbsp. ice water
Filling:
1/3 to 2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
8 medium sized apples
2 tablespoons margarine
Directions
Crust:
Measure the flour, sugar and salt together and combine. Add the chilled butter pieces (cut them with a knife) and shortening to the bowl, but don’t over mix. Add the ice water. Mix until the dough holds together (add a more water if you need to.) Put the dough on a lightly floured surface, knead it together, then cut it in half. Flatten each half into a disk, wrap in saran wrap and chill for 30 min. Roll out a disk on a floured surface until it’s about 12 inches in diameter. Put the circle in a 9″ pie plate, trimming any extra dough from the edges. Return it to the refrigerator until you’re ready to make the pie. Add filling (see below.) Roll out the second ball of dough and cover top. Use your fingers to pinch the edges together. Cut slits in the top.
Filling:
Heat oven to 425 degrees. Peel, core and slice the apples. Mix sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt in large bowl. Stir in apples. Pour into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with margarine. Cover with top crust and seal the edges. Cut slits in the top. Bake for 40 minutes — ample time to scour your house for a pool floatie.