National Apple Pie Day – Science and Apple Pie Baking

hello everyone welcome back to dailydose of science the Ashton Museumscience today is national apple pie daywhat’s a better way to celebrate than tolearn how to make an apple pie and someof the science that goes with it sowe’re gonna walk you through how to makean apple piemy mom’s gonna help me out she’s theonly person I know in my house who canmake a pie because she probably makes adozen a year so we’re starting off withpeeling and slicing our apples we use afancy peeler in my house that makes thethin slices but you could just hand peelcore and slice them into thin thinpieces now it’s important that yourapples are thin you have chunks ofapples in your pie they’re gonna settleall into their pockets as they heat upand soften so making them nice and thinand laying them on top of each otherprevents them from settling as much andyou’ll have less space between yourcrust and pie pie filling so we’re gonnabreak up our APIs into smaller piecesthat are not just all circular we’rejust are making our filling so with ourfilling we’re going to add sugar anddifferent spices to the sliced apples sothat they can kind of marinatebefore they go into the pot we usedabout a third of a cup of sugarbut these apples are sweeter because weused Golden Delicious so you might needto use more sugar than that if you usetart apples and then we also add ourcinnamon and our nutmeg and then we addsome flour so flour seems kind of weirdbut it actually helps thicken up thejuices that come from the apples in yourpie it keeps the crust from getting asoggy on the bottom as the juices flowout of the apples so you can beat thisnice apple gravy in your apple pieso we’re stirring up all of thoseingredients together so that they’renice and incorporated and then we’rejust gonna pour them over our applesnow we’re gonna stir those up and letthem sit for a bit while we work on thenext part of our pie so we’re gonna makethe crust now so you’re gonna need flourbutter sugar and some salt we’re gonnaslice up butter into your dryingredients don’t ever cut into yourhands like this I told my mother inorder to do that because you couldaccidentally hurt yourself so alwaysmake sure you’re cutting on a counter sowe’re adding in slices of butter andthen we are mashing it all together intothe flour and sugar salt mixture untilwe get kind of a nice breadcrumb texturethis once you have that you know thatyour butter is fully incorporated intoall of your dry ingredients making themreally nice start to a crustso when your crust kinda looks like thatyou see little bits and like kind ofbread crumbs you’re gonna add your icewater to the mixture we added about fourtablespoons worth of ice water and thereason why you want to use ice waterlike water that has had ice cubes in itdon’t put the ice cubes but just thewater you’re gonna put that in therebecause it actually prevents the butterfrom melting as quickly so this keepsyour crust nice and flaky when you dofinally bake it and allows for a reallynice crust without being overly kind ofthin from all the melted butter so westart kneading the crust up into niceball and then we were gonna separatethat out so that we can start rolling itout all right so now our crust is kindof a nice ball all nice and stucktogether so we’re gonna split it in totwo parts and then we’re gonna startrolling it out so you add flour to yoursurface to prevent sticking I startpressing it down and then you startrolling it out so this can take a prettylong time to do so you’re gonna be kindof patient roll it outadd flour so it doesn’t stick and thenjust continue that process until you geta nice large thin piece of dough to addto the bottom of your pie plate so nowwe’re holding up our dough so that it’seasy to lift off of our cutting boardsurface here and then we will set itinto our pie plate and then adjust it soit fits and covers all of the bottom andall of this sides really nicely youmight have to fix some holes when you dothis if your crust got too thin and somespots and then we’re just gonna press itdown maybe remove some extra and getready to add our applesall right so we’re just gonna pour ourapples into the pan and try and makesure they stay as flat as possible whenwe’re putting them in there so we kindof get these layers without tons of airpockets like we talked about before sothe lack of space in between applesmeans that your pie will stay thickerand you won’t have a big gap betweenyour apples and crust when it’s donebaking so we’re just gonna kind of pressdown our apples again making sure thatthere’s no big air pockets and thenwe’re gonna add some butter to the piewhile my mom rolls out the top of thecrust to finish it off so I just takeabout two tablespoons of butter off thestick and I’m gonna take that butter andI chop it into smaller pieces so thesmaller pieces of butter are reallyimportant for preventing the crust ontop from getting really thick and chewybecause when water mixes with the flourin the crust in the top of the crust itstarts something called gluten formationwhich just really thickens the crust andmakes it a lot cheerierand by adding butter or creating airpockets and we’re adding fat thatprevents that glute information fromhappening so this Creek keeps that crustnice and flaky and easy to eat all rightso now we’re just gonna fold up thatcrust again and get ready to add it ontop of your pie to finish up[Music]now we’re gonna unfold it nice andcarefully we have a little bit of stuffbreaking right now but we’ll justprepare that all as we fix up the thepipe so now my mom’s just removing someof the excess as well as pinchingtogether the top and bottom crust sothat it seals up the edges and we don’tget any juice or apples leaking from theside and then she just kind of adds alittle dips and stuff to the to thecrust so that it looks a little fancierand to again seal up any holes this isalso when you add some steam vents toallow the excess water vapor to leavethe pie so it doesn’t swell up a wholelot then we’re gonna get ready to put inthe oven by adding a little pie ring asyou can see right there to prevent thecrust on the edges from getting tooBrown too quickly and potentiallyburning so we’ll set a timer for about45 minutes let it bake and then we’llcome back take the pie ring off let itbake for a few more minutes and thenwe’ll be all[Music]and now it’s time for our finished pieto come out of the oven so here is ourfinished national apple pie dayapple pie looks very good I’m excited tohave a bite and I’m glad we got to learnsome science today thanks so much forwatching[Music]you