If you have some fun cookie cutters lying around this is a really easy way to impress with your pie topping. I did go to all the effort to colour the pie dough here, but you can obviously just used regular pie dough for a just as awesome topping.
Colouring pie dough
The pie dough is coloured naturally with beets, carrots and turmeric powder. Firstly no it (luckily) does not effect the flavour of the pie, and this is coming from a particular beet hater here. The dough will be more on the short side (less flaky) if you want a uniform colour as you will need to mix the dough more than normal, personally I like my pie dough on the less flaky side, but that may just be me.
For the yellow colour I added 1/2 tsp turmeric to 90g of flour and made the pie dough according to 1/4 of the dough recipe.
For the red and orange colours I used pureed and reduced down beets and carrots. This honestly is a pretty labour intensive process that after doing this for the second time I would definitely recommend just buying beet and carrot powder to colour the pie dough. It can then be added easily to the flour when making the pie dough.
But given the lack of exotic ingredients where I live I added the colour by making beet/carrot butter. I cooked beets and carrots in a saucepan with a little water, pureeing them and continuing to reduce as much as possible. Then I made beet and carrot butter by adding the purreed beets and carrots at a half half ratio and making the pie dough with the beet/carrot butters.
A tip I’ve picked up to preserve the colour of the pie dough on baking is to not egg wash the top of the dough, given the purpose of this is for extra browning.
Chai Caramel Apple Pie
Ingredients
Pie dough
360g all purpose flour
260g unsalted butter
4 tbsp granulated sugar
120–180ml ice cold water
1/2 tsp of salt
Caramel
150g granulated sugar
60ml water
2 tbsp corn syrup
2 cinnamon sticks
3 cloves
160ml heavy cream, warmed
60g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
Filling
5–6 apples (honeycrisp, gala, pink lady)
2 tbsp cornstarch
60g dark brown sugar
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tsps ground cinnamon
2 tsps vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
eggwash
1 egg
1 tbsp water
Instructions
Caramel
In a heavy bottomed saucepan add the sugar, cinnamon sticks, cloves, water and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over a medium heat, gently swirling to dissolve the sugar. Cook, without stirring, for 5-10mins until the mixture turns a dark golden caramel colour. Watch carefully once it starts turning golden as the caramel can burn quickly. Remove from heat, add the butter, vanilla, salt and whisk in. Slowly add the warm cream, whisking till smooth. It will bubble at first but keep whisking. Allow to cool a little, remove the cinnamon sticks and cloves, set aside or if making ahead of time, store in a glass jar.
Pastry
Measure and mix the flour, sugar, and salt into a bowl, then add cubes of cold butter. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingers until there is a range of larger walnut sized and pea- sized crumbs. Add 120ml of the ice cold water in the center. Mix together until the mixture just starts to come together. Add another tablespoon or two of the water if needed. Remove from the bowl at this point onto a lightly floured surface. Press the dough until it just comes together. Divide into two and form into discs, wrap up the dough and leave in the fridge for at least 30mins.
Roll out each of the discs onto a well floured surface to 4-5mm thickness and about 12inches wide. Line the the bottom of a buttered 9inch pie dish with one of the discs. Trim any overhang to 1″. Fold the overhanging dough underneath. With the other dough, place on baking parchment on a large baking sheet. Chill in the fridge for 30mins.
Filling
Put the lemon juice in a large bowl. Peel, core and slice the apples thinly, tossing them in the lemon juice. Add the rest of the filling ingredients and toss to combine.
To assemble
If doing a cut out leaf topping, cut out the leaf shapes with cookie cutters out of the rolled out dough sheet.
Preheat the oven to 425F.
Tightly pack the apple slices into the prepared pie dish. Pour over 1 cup of the caramel all over the apples, save the rest for serving with the pie! Brush the edges with a little water and lay the leaf shapes all over the top of the apples, starting around the edges. Or simple lay the dough sheet on top, fold the edges together with the bottom layer and crimp the edges. Slice a hole in the top for steam to escape.
If using coloured pie dough I recommend not egg washing to preserve the colour of the dough when baked. If using normal dough, whisk the egg and water together for the eggwash. Brush all over the top of the pie. Bake the pie on a large rimmed baking sheet for 25mins. Lower the oven to 375F and bake for another 30-40mins until the crust is golden and the juices are bubbling. Let the pie cool for at least 4 hrs before serving. Best served slightly warmed with vanilla ice cream and extra caramel on top!
How much of the cinnamon sticks and cloves are needed for this recipe? They are not in the ingredients section but they are mentioned in the instructions.
Hi Lauren,
Sorry! It’s 2 cinnamon sticks and 3 cloves. They got missed from the ingredients, just updated that now. Thanks so much for pointing that out 🙂