Rose Petal Apple Pie — Territorial Seed Company Blog

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, we wanted to share a special, sweet recipe that will WOW your guests. It’s much simpler to create than it looks, and the taste is heavenly. Recently we’ve seen many different recipes featuring apple slices arranged in this manner, and we decided to try a few in our test kitchen. Although they’ve all turned out beautifully, we’ve found them to be disappointingly lack-luster when served. The thin apples tend to dry out during baking and there’s intrinsically far less of the apple-pie-sticky-sweetness with this technique. For this dish to balance out the drying effect, we added a creamy, spiced layer under the apples. It gives the pie much more body, interest, and more of a pie-filling mouthfeel. A word of advice for success, a mandolin is essential to get perfectly sliced apples.

Crust

1 cup all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons butter or margarine

Pinch salt

3-5 tablespoons ice water

Mix salt and flour.
Cut in butter/margarine until it’s in pea-sized chunks (We use a food processor, but a pastry blender or 2 knives works, too.)
Add water 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring with a fork, just until the dough holds together.
Chill in the refrigerator for 15-20 minutes.
Roll out on a floured surface until it will fit a 9-inch pie pan.
Transfer to pie plate, trim to fit and finish the edge.
Keep chilled.

Bottom Layer

4 ounces softened cream cheese

1/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Mix all ingredients until smooth.
Pour and spread onto crust then return crust to the refrigerator.

Apple Filling

3 red-skinned apples

3 green-skinned apples

Juice of 1 lemon

½ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon each cloves, nutmeg & ginger

Cut apples in half, core and slice into 1/8 inch slices.
Toss apples in lemon juice to coat.
Mix remaining ingredients and toss in apples.

Starting at the outer edge, arrange green apple slices, overlapping slightly.
Continue placing slices, use the largest pieces first—on the outer portion—and work towards the center.