Nov 25, 2008

Veganized Elegant Farmer's Apple Pie

I saw Bobby Flay's apple pie throwdown episode against Wisconsin's famous BrownPaper Bag pie by the Elegant Farmer. It had a basic crust on the bottom with mounds of apples and a sugar cookie crust, baked inside a brown paper bag... how cool is that? Anyway, I decided that I wanted to put a vegspin on it, so I looked up numerous recipes and found plenty of "posers," and finally came up with one that was a combination of three different recipes. The crust was made a bit healthier by using an oil crust recipe from vegweb; the filling was adapted from the Elegant Farmer recipe on the Food Network site, and the cookie topping was adapted from the vegan sugar cookie recipe on Squido. My pal who used to own and run a restaurant and went to culinary school thought it had great flavor and texture, but needed some pectin because it was a bit on the runny side, and also thought it would be pretty to brush it with some soy milk to make it shiny. I thought some white (vegan) sugar sprinkled on cookies would have done the trick too. All in all it was a great pie and everyone gobbled it up- even my friend who doesn't usually like apple pie. Next time, I might just add some pectin or increase the tapioca flour to 3T. to thicken up the juices.

Make crust and cookie dough first.

Crust:

2 C. All purpose flour
2/3 C. vegetable oil
1/3 C. water

Spinz:

Mix the oil into the flour until fully incorporated. Add the water and mix until a soft dough forms. Wrap in plastic and set it in the fridge.

Cookie:

1/2 C. margarine
4 tsp. vegetable oil
2/3 C. sugar
2 tsp. egg replacer
1/3 C. water
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 2/3 C. all purpose flour (unbleached)
2/3 tsp. baking powder
1/3 tsp. salt

Spinz:

mix the margarine, oil, sugar, egg replacer, water, and vanilla until combined. Throw in remaining ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate.

Filling:

8-10 apples
1/4 C. sugar
1/2 C. brown sugar
4 tsp. tapioca flour
1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. butterscotch extract (vanilla if you don't have it)
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt

Spinz:

Peel, core, and slice the apples, and toss them with the rest of the ingredients. After chilling for about an hour, roll out the pie crust dough and place into pie pan. Dump the apples in so they mound up towards the center like a dome, then get the cookie dough and roll out to about 1/4" thick (helpful to roll it out between plastic wrap to prevent sticking. Use cookie cutter to cut out shapes of choice, then arrange them all over the top of the pie. Place the pie into a brown paper bag and fold under to close, then put it in the oven for 1 hour. Then take it out and cut a round hole on the top so the top layer is exposed and put back in for another 15 minutes to golden up. Let cool a bit before digging in!

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