Big Apple Pie

Russians love pies as much, if not more, as Americans do. The only difference is, well, the actual pies. We make them with a variety of fillings and go from tiny deep fried "pirozhki" to big and baked "pirogi".

This one is definitely a "pirog" - big and baked. The dough used in this recipe is your basic sweet bread dough used not only for pies but for a variety of other pastries. See the recipe for that dough in the previous post.

Today I thought to try a traditional apple pie. With a tiny twist of my own.

Apple Pie Filling

5 large apples (you pick Granny Smith or Gala)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 lime - juiced
1 tbsp cinnamon + extra 5 tbps of sugar

1. Wash and peel the apples. Cut them in halves, remove the cores. Then slice thinly.

2. Put all your sliced apples in a large bowl, add sugar and juice of the lime. Lemon works too. But lime gives it an "out of the beaten path" tang. Gently mix with your hands. Try to break as few slices as possible. Put the apples in the sauce pan with some butter or just like that and saute them a bit if you worry that they won't come out soft after baking. There's always a risk!

3. Butter a cookie sheet. Roll half of the dough and fit it onto your cookie sheet. You will need an edge for this pie, so roll accordingly. Moderately butter your crust and then layer apples generously.

4. Sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. You can leave it as is, or put some thin stripes of dough on top for decoration. It's up to you! But before you put our pie in the oven, brush the peeking crust with some whipped egg - for a shiny effect.

5. Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake for 25-35 minutes or until the crust is nice and golden brown and the apples are soft. Cover edges with foil if they start to brown too fast.

You can put the remaining dough in the fridge for a couple of days for future use or make some tiny rolls right away. But if you do the stripes, like in my pictures, there won't be as much left. However, 1 more apple can provide for a tiny version of this and you can share with someone special!

Basic Sweet Dough aka "Testo Sdobnoe"

The dough presented in this recipe is your basic sweet bread dough aka "sdobnoe testo" used not only for pies but for a variety of other pastries. If you're not up for pies use it for cinnamon and butter rolls, or anything else that comes to mind.

A piece of advice - sift the flour! I cannot stress enough how good a thing it is for your dough! So sift it! Twice!

The Recipe

2 cups milk

2 tbsp yeast

2 eggs
2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla sugar (or vanilla extract)
9 cups flour depending on consistency + extra for kneading and rolling

2 sticks butter + 1/2 stick butter for greasing the pan and prepping the crust

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk.

2. Add eggs, salt, sugar, vanilla and melted butter. Mix well.

3. Gradually add flour and knead the dough until it's nice and smooth.

4. Cover the bowl with the dough with a towel and put it in a warm place. Let sit for 30-45 minutes.

One trick that I learned from my sister-in-law is to preheat the oven to 170-200F. Turn it off. Put the bowl with the dough in. And here's a perfectly warm place. Plus, this is exactly why it only takes 30 minutes for it to be ready to use.

Once the dough is ready, knead it one more time. Then go ahead and shape your rolls or pies.

This dough bakes fast.

For smaller sized rolls and pies preheat the oven to 385F and bake 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Larger sized pies and breads will take longer. Try it at 350F for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Make sure it doesn't burn on the bottom! Good luck!

Commentaries welcome.