Debriefing

My second apple pie is not quite as tasty as the first. I got the amount of apples right (the other pie was miniscule in overall thickness), but I used a different recipe this time for the buttermilk filling base. You see, I follow a book recipe for buttermilk pie, and then fold my own apples in. The first one used a bit of lemon juice and a tablespoon of butter; this one used an actual full stick of fucking butter (I used margarine since my father couldn't locate the butter in the deep freeze underneath all the squirrels, snakes, a kitten, etc.), which made my product far too oily. Also, my mother suggested I use Red Delicious apples this time over Granny Smith (she said the last pie was too tart), but I found them to be really kind of boring and flavorless.

My original problem with the first pie was that it was too liquid; it was a cream pie with some apples floating around in it. I'm going to base my next invention upon the first recipe, since it uses much less butter, but I'll put in only the amount of lemon juice required to keep the apples from oxidizing. I plan to use slightly less buttermilk in order to thicken the mix a bit, and I'll use the same amount of apples I did for the second pie. I want the buttermilk "custard" to simply fill in the cracks between the apples and give it a light, sweet flavor, not exist as the sole contents of the pastry. Less sugar is in order, too--the first recipe calls for two damned cups, and I'd like to have an apple pie rather than an angel food cake. At the end of this I hope to have my own recipe which combines my personally adjusted buttermilk pie with a certain amount of apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Despite the dissatisfaction at my second recipe's result for the filling, I think I've finally figured out the crust. I did it the night before, a difficult single crust recipe with not much shortening (I still can't find butter in my damn house), and put it in the refridgerator until the next day. It dried up considerably, but with some extra moisture it finally rolled out, and I even got it into the pan without making some sort of misshapen omelet. I've been pretty happy with the crusts, as they're just the way I want them: flaky and not crunchy like a blackened pecan pie.