Chocolate Caramel Apple Pie for Pi Day

To celebrate Pi Day, my friends and I decided that we had to bake a pie. I wasn’t satisfied with the suggestion to just make an ordinary apple pie – there had to be chocolate. So inspired by chocolate caramel covered apples, we made a chocolate caramel apple pie!

I’m sure you’ve all seen chocolate caramel covered apples in the store, and a few years ago I decided that it was silly to pay $10 or $20 or more for a single apple, so I made them myself to gave to friends as gifts for the holidays.

In fact, one year, with the help of two of my best friends, we made over 35 of them in a single day.

Maybe I’ll post the detailed recipe here someday, but for now, here’s the gist: Buy some dowels from the craft store, wash them (and the apples) and then hammer one dowel into the core of each apple – a little more than halfway through. Then make the caramel recipe below (this recipe should cover about 8 large apples; you need a much larger batch for 35 apples) and dip the apples in, being careful not to burn yourself – the caramel is quite hot. Once cool, melt and temper some dark chocolate and dip each apple again in the chocolate. Last time, as in the photo, I then proceeded to dip the bottoms again into milk chocolate and then drizzled with white chocolate, but you can decorate them any way you like. It’s best if you use slightly tart and crisp apples, like Granny Smith.

Not surprisingly, the pie version is also quite delicious and requires less hammering.

Chocolate Caramel Apple Pie

Based on “The Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie” by Tyler Florence:

Ingredients

Pie crust:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
6 tbsp (3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut in chunks
1 egg separated, (yolks for the pastry, whites for the glaze)
2 tablespoons ice water, plus more if needed

Caramel:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Pinch salt
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (optional)

Apple filling:

2 tbsp lemon juice
6 apples (recommended: mix of Granny Smith and Gala)
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips (preferred 60% dark chocolate)

Crisp topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled, cut into pieces

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the pie crust, blend together the flour and salt. Then cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender or a fork, until it comes together; it should be somewhat crumbly. Then add the egg yolk and water and blend until it just comes together. Do not overwork the dough, as it will get tougher. Form the dough into a ball, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

While the dough is resting, prepare the filling. For the caramel sauce: mix the sugar and corn syrup in a large pot with a heavy bottom. There should be a lot of extra space in the pot since the sauce will bubble up a lot later on. Cook the sugar over medium heat, without stirring, until the sugar melts and caramelizes to a light brown caramel color, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and very slowly add the cream. a little at a time since it will bubble up violently, stirring to combine. Once the cream is incorporated, return to medium heat. Heat slowly, stirring occasionally, until the caramel just reaches 238 degrees F on a candy thermometer, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the heat. Whisk in the butter, salt, vanilla extract, and optionally the chocolate, and then cool until thickened.

Peel and core the apples, then dice into small chunks. Toss the cut apples with lemon juice to keep them from going brown. Toss the apples with the flour and cinnamon. Stir the chocolate chips in with the apples.

Retrieve the pie crust dough from the refrigerator. Let it sit on the counter for 15 minutes to soften enough to roll out. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch circle. Roll up the dough onto the rolling pin and transfer onto a 10-inch pie pan. Press the dough into the pan tightly. Use a fork to pierce holes in the dough. If available, put parchment paper over the crust and fill with pie weights [http://www.piemaven.com/blind_bake.htm]. To prevent the crust from getting soggy, blind bake it for about 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees F until the edges are slightly brown. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before filling.

Place a layer of the apple/chocolate mixture into the pie crust. Spoon some of the caramel sauce evenly over the apple pieces. Repeat with more layers, until the pie is slightly overfilled. The apples will shrink down somewhat as the pie cooks.

To make the crisp topping: Mix together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the mixture until crumbly. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the apples.

Place the chocolate caramel apple pie on a cookie sheet and bake for 50 minutes on the middle rack, until the pie is golden and bubbling. Remove from the oven and let the pie rest at room temperature for at least 1 hour to allow time for the filling to set. This will help prevent it from falling apart when you cut it.