Photo by Gina Moore
SERVES UP TO 20
8 large apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into 8 slices each
1 tablespoon lemon zest
½ lemon, juiced (about 2 tablespoons)
¾ cup light brown sugar (or white if you prefer)
1 teaspoon ground cardamom or cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons arrowroot or cornstarch
4 9-inch pie dough rounds (2 for top and 2 for bottom)
1 pint blueberries, rinsed and drained
¼ cup heavy cream
Extra fine sugar (optional)
Preheat oven to 400 F. In a large mixing bowl, combine apples slices, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, cardamom, nutmeg and cornstarch.
Roll out two 9-inch round pie crusts into one large crust to fit into a 13-by-18-inch half sheet pan. Evenly distribute apple mixture in pan and cover with blueberries. Roll out remaining pie crusts and either completely cover fruit or cut into strips and place over fruit in a lattice pattern. Crimp the dough around the edges of the pan. Brush the dough with heavy cream and sprinkle on the extra fine sugar.
Bake 35–40 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Allow to cool before serving.
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Chef's Tips
Cornstarch and arrowroot vs. flour. In most recipes, cornstarch and arrowroot are the preferred thickeners. Arrowroot is a great thickener; it has no taste and leaves food with a glossy clear finish. Cornstarch has a slight taste and leaves a cloudy, opaque finish to food. Flour has a starchy taste and needs to be cooked longer.
Lemon zest and lemon juice. Whenever your recipe calls for using lemon juice and lemon zest, always zest the lemon first. This is a lot easier than squeezing the juice from the lemon, then deciding that you needed to zest the peel.
Prevent apple slices from browning after cutting. As you cut apples to prepare them for your pies, you will notice that they start to brown very quickly. Squeezing lemon juice over the apple slices will slow down the browning.
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