Cast Iron Chaos RecentChanges
XMLFacebookTwitter

LoginLogoutRegisterContact the WebmasterPayPal Me

2013-01-06

This was a cooking experiment in progress. A simple three words will describe it: bundt apple pie. No, not cake - PIE. An apple pie with a crust and filling, baked in a cast iron bundt pan.

My newly acquired cast iron bundt pan was ready for use, and I'd been bursting with excitement over it. I'd even had a bundt cake recipe all chosen out as the first thing to bake in it – Alton Brown's Apple Spice Bundt Cake mix. However, thoughts come unbidden to my mind that often distract me; and while I was driving to work the other day, I had let my mind wander. (I prefer to let my mind wander than listen to idiot-oriented morning radio). In the space of a few fleet moments, thoughts had flashed through my head about how I had a cool heavy iron bundt pan – one that would kick ass over a thin, lightweight bundt cake tin. It was just like the times I'd cooked pies in cast iron, ones that were far superior than a pie baked in a pie tin…and then the three words flashed together. BUNDT APPLE PIE. Why not use the cast iron bundt pan to bake an apple pie?

When I looked on Google for any examples of a pie in a bundt pan, I'd found exactly ZERO. Evidently, no one has done this before – everyone bakes cakes and sometimes other things in bundt pans (Hello, Janine and her chicken! :) ), but apparently no one had written anything online about baking a pie in a bundt pan.

COOL!

Thinking the idea over, I realized there was only one major difference between baking in a bundt pan versus a pie tin: at the end, you flip the whole pan over and let the result stand on its own. Therefore, the key to this idea would be to use a pie crust recipe that resulted in a solid crust, one that would allow the pie to hold together when flipped over, and keep the pie filling from leaking. And, based upon my experiences with steaming British steak and kidney puddings, I knew exactly what would be called for: suet. I reasoned using a shortening or lard pie crust recipe, and simply substituting suet for the lard, should give a pie crust strong enough to hold together. Indeed, the previous week I'd baked a Christmas pork pie with a suet crust, and that had produced a very solid and satisfactory crust – it required a knife to cut it, but the crust was still tasty and not "chewy" or rock-hard. This was the way to go!

And so, here was my first attempt at making an apple pie in a cast iron bundt pan: Bundt Apple Pie