Apple Pielettes & Other Domestic Stories

I came home today after work and started making the latest recipe for my online-bake-a-long group: the Apple Pielettes from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi. I decided that I wasn’t going to use the apricots, because I didn’t want to go to make a special shopping trip to buy them, and I switched out the raisins for dried cranberries. I got the butter out of the fridge for the pie dough, set aside the last three apples in the house…and then the DH came home. (*insert dum-dum-DUM music here*)

The DH likes to take apples to work because he likes to snack on them, so yesterday he had bought six apples at the local store: 3 for today, and 3 for tomorrow. When he realized that I wanted to make a pie with them, I think he was a bit torn: pie for midnight snack, or apples for snack tomorrow? (I obviously come down on the side of pie, because PIE, but to each his own.)

The long story short is that he went back out into the cold and damp Toronto night, walking to the closest store, to get some more apples, so that I could bake my pie. While he was gone, I made our lunches for tomorrow, as well as some potato salad for dinner tomorrow. In the middle of all these preparations, the DH came back looking all boyishly pleased with himself, and with a flourish, presented me not only with a bag of apples, but with a lovely fall bouquet of flowers. Wasn’t that sweet? (*imagine me with cartoon hearts in my eyes & thumping heart in chest, Pepe Le Pew-style*) And I just realized that I have no end to this story, so I am going to awkwardly segue back to the pielettes.

Speaking of pielettes (see what I did there?), they’re really just mini-pies, made in a muffin tin. Or in my case, a mini muffin tray, plus a tart tin.

I mixed up the dough and let it chill while I chopped the apples and added in the spices, vanilla extract, and cranberries. I used some homemade wine jelly instead of the apple jelly or orange marmalade that Dorie suggested, simply because that’s what I had in the fridge. And I thought the wine flavour would be a nice addition to apples and spice!

I rolled out the dough, and used a wine glass to cut out the bottoms of the pastries, and pressed those into the buttered mini muffin tin. Then I filled them up with the apple mixture, cut out the tops with a champagne glass, and put it all together. I sprinkled some pearl sugar on top, and popped them into the oven, and baked until the tops were golden and the apple mixture was all bubbly and juicy looking.

I let it cool (briefly. Do I look like I have patience?) and popped them into my mouth! Yum!

If I made these again, I’d likely increase the amount of sugar in the galette dough, as I found it a bit hearty while I was looking for something more sweet. I’d also double the amount of wine jelly I used, and add at least 4 times as much spice. That said, these would make a great addition to an appetizer party! They’re little morsels that can be eaten in one hand, and aren’t too rich, while still satisfying the craving for apple pie. I’m curious what everyone else thought of them!

As I write this, I’m munching away on one of the little pielettes. I’ve also added them to tomorrow’s lunches. And there are still a dozen apples in the fruit bowl, so all is well in our household again! (Plus pie! I mean, really, you can’t go wrong with pie.)

Next Post: Peanut Butter Cups. Or…a foodie book review! Or spice central. Decisions, decisions — a blog-writers job is never done!