The Chopping Blog

For the past six years, I’ve been entrusted with the esteemed position of leading the Chopping Block’s holiday pie baking. This is a tradition that goes back to our original store on Webster, when Shelley filled holiday pie orders single-handedly with the one double oven we had there. As our company has grown, pie demand has of course increased. Thankfully, our oven capacity has as well!

Our holiday pie baking starts with a full day of making dough. We make our dough in a food processor, one batch at a time. When you have 100 batches of dough to make, you get creative about streamlining the process. First, I dice pounds of Plugra butter, then get them back into the fridge so they’re cold when it’s time to mix. If the butter isn’t cold enough, you end up with sticky dough. Next, I get all my dry ingredients out—flour, sugar and salt. I line up half a dozen or so mixing bowls, and measure out the dries for several batches. I keep pitchers of water in the freezer so they’re plenty cold.

The food processor whirs for several hours, pausing between batches while I gather up the dough, wrap it, and set it in the fridge.

The real fun starts on pie-baking day… Team Pie! Each year, the pie-baking team consists of a mix of rookies and veterans. We teach the rookies our tried-and-true system, so that, once we get fired up, the four or five of us are a well-oiled machine. Ovens are lined with foil to catch drips. The prep station is equipped with the venerable Apple Master (absolutely indispensable!) and a towering stack of cases of Granny Smith apples. The filling station is loaded up with sugar, salt, spices. The rolling stations are ready with stacks of pans to be filled, cream and sugar for glazing the tops, and those trays and trays of dough. And awaaaaaayyyy we go!

After a period of chit-chat (while the coffee sets in), Team Pie goes silent for a while, literally mesmerized by the machinations of profuse pie-making. Oven timers “ding!” and bring us out of our trance at regular intervals. We may have as many as eight ovens loaded up at any given time!

For those of us who spent many years producing food in commercial kitchens, Team Pie is a kind of nostalgic blast-from-the-past where we get to go back into the old, familiar production mode. For the newbies, it’s mind-blowing to see how many pies can actually be made in one day! At the end of the day, we’re proud of every single pie we made. A lot of fun and camaraderie goes into those pies, and they’re as beautiful as they are delicious.

We invite you to experience Chopping Block pie yourself! Try your hand with our classic apple pie recipe, below, or come join us for one of our Holiday Pies and Tarts classes. Or, order our apple and pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving (orders due by 7 p.m. on 11/21), and bring home Team Pie’s handmade masterpieces!

The Chopping Block’s Apple Pie

Yield: One 9- to 10-inch deep-dish pie

Active time: 45 minutes

Start to finish: 2 hours

3 pounds Granny Smith or Pippin apples

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 to 1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 disks of pie dough

2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Heavy whipping cream as needed for garnish

Granulated sugar as needed for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 375º (or 350º convection).
2. Peel and core the apples, and cut them into1/2-inch wedges.
3. Toss apples, flour, sugar (vary amount depending upon tartness of apples), cinnamon and salt in a large bowl to mix. Let sit while rolling dough.
4. Divide chilled dough into two unequal parts (about 2/3 for bottom crust and 1/3 for the top) Place the smaller portion of dough in the refrigerator.
5. Lightly dust a clean surface with flour and roll out the bottom crust to about 1/8-inch thick. As you’re rolling, lift and turn the dough occasionally to ensure it does not stick. Gently roll dough onto rolling pin, lift, and place into 9- or 10-inch pie dish or seasoned cast iron skillet. Gently push the dough to fit the pie dish, allowing excess to hang over the edge.
6. Add filling to the pie. Sprinkle pieces of butter on top of the filling.
7. Remove smaller portion of dough from the refrigerator and roll into a 1/8-inch-thick circle. Insert a knife in several places through the top crust to create vents. Place the top portion of dough over the filling and trim the edges of the crust, leaving about 1 inch of excess dough all around.
8. Close the crust by folding the edges under and pinching or using a fork to crimp. Brush the top of the pie with heavy cream and sprinkle generously with sugar.
9. Place the pie on a baking sheet covered in parchment, and bake until the filling is bubbly in the center, the apples are tender and the top crust is golden brown, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
10. Allow pie to cool before cutting and serving.

Pie or Tart Dough

Makes one double crust apple pie

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

Pinch fine sea salt

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, cold and cut into 2 tablespoon sized pieces

1/4 cup shortening, cold

1/3 cup cold water

Put flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the shortening and butter to the processor and pulse mixture until crumbly and butter is in small pieces throughout the flour. With the machine running slowly add the entire 1/3 cup of cold water. Process until the dough just forms a ball.

Turn out dough onto a work surface and form into an oval. Cut the oval in half and press the cut side of each disc down to form a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Carolyn Maniaci is a Lead Chef Instructor at the Chopping Block, as well as part of the curriculum-developing team. She has a particular passion for baking and pastry but enjoys cooking and teaching every kind of cuisine imaginable. Her formal training was at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (Le Cordon Bleu), although she has learned some of the most valuable and interesting things about cooking and food from chefs she’s worked under, colleagues and peers, and many other dedicated food lovers.

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