Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Calphalon. All opinions are my own.
Knife skills are so important when you’re in the kitchen. Whether it’s for slicing vegetables or even baking amazing desserts like pies like this Chai Spiced Apple Pie.
What is Chai Spice?
Chai means “tea” in Hindi. The Hindi term chai means a mix of spices steeped into a tea-like beverage.
Chai spices, which go in the tea, sometimes include cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, pepper and coriander. These spices are normally mixed with the black tea, but for this recipe, they will go in the pie.
How is the pie made?
To make the pie, I started with a homemade pie crust made with both unsalted butter and shortening. After the crust is made and refrigerated. Roll out about 1/3 of the dough and place it in the bottom of a pie dish.
For the filling, peel, core and slice the apples. Add sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and chai spices, then add the filling to the bottom pie crust.
Divide the remaining dough in half and use one half for the pie dough strips and the other for the decor.
What was used to cut the strips of dough?
I used the 8-in. Chef’s Knife from the Calphalon Precision Self-Sharpening 15-Piece Cutlery Set in making my Apple Chai Spiced Pie. Calphalon Precision Self-Sharpening knives are the perfect knives for all of your cooking and baking needs and they stay sharp for a lifetime. The 15pc cutlery set features SharpIN™ technology with built-in ceramic sharpeners that automatically sharpen the straight edge knives every time you take them out of the block. This way, you’ll never have to worry about using dull knives.
Be confident in your knife skills when you have top-quality tools in hand like Calphalon cutlery.
How did I cut them?
To make even strips, roll the dough out flat. Here’s a great hack for getting even strips. Use a ruler!
Place a ruler vertically on the edge of the rolled dough. Place the Calphalon Chef’s knife against the ruler and make a long slice down the side of the ruler. Repeat with the remaining sides until you have an even rectangle.
Place the ruler on one side of the edge of the pie dough. Make each strip the same size. You can do this by making the strips the same width of the ruler or use a second ruler to measure across.
Use The Calphalon Chef’s knife to slice the strips of dough. Calphalon cutlery helped me master the slicing of dough by making the cutting process easier and giving me clean, precise cuts.
Place slices to the side. If you need more slices, roll out more of the remaining dough. If your strips are the same width of the ruler, you will need 6-7 strips for layering horizontally and 6-7 strips for layering vertically.
Add the first set of strips of dough on top of the sliced apples, evenly. Take the second set of strips and place them perpendicular to the first set, weaving them through them. Cut off the excess dough around the edges.
Roll out the remaining dough and use cookie cutters or plunges to cut out leaf or any fall shapes to add on top of the weaved dough in a pattern.
This makes one beautiful and delicious pie!
Get the 15 piece knife set at Calphalon.com. Use code PEACHES25 for 25% off (excludes sale items)
Here are other delicious Fall pies:
Chai Spiced Apple Pie
Easy Fall apple pie rich with cinnamon and chai spices!
Ingredients
Pie Dough
- 3 1/4 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 sticks butter, cubed and frozen
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
- 9-11 tbsp ice water
Filling
- 5-6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp Chai Spice
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 egg (for egg wash)
Chai Spice
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
- 1 tsp ground allspice
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 3 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp coriander
Instructions
Pie
- Combine flour, butter, shortening, salt in a food processor. Pour in water until dough comes together. Take 1/3 of the dough, shape into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap and place into the refrigerator until ready to use.Divide the remaining dough in half. Roll out one half thinly and place in the bottom of a pie dish. Cut off excess dough. Spoon filling into the dish. Roll out the second half and cut into 6-7 even strips. Set excess dough aside. Place strips on top of the apple filling. Fold back every second strip of pastry onto itself, a bit more than halfway across the pie. Roll out the third piece of the dough that was in the refrigerator, and also cut it into even strips. Weave the second set of strips into the first by placing a strip of pastry perpendicular to the remaining strips on the pie. Unfold the folded strips of pastry across the perpendicular strip of pastry. Next, fold back the other strips of pastry. Place another strip of pastry perpendicular to the original strips of pastry. Repeat this pattern with the remaining strips of pastry. Cut off the excess pie dough around the pie dish. Set aside.Gather all remaining excess dough, roll it out and with fall leaf cutting cutters or plungers, cut out leaves and place them around the sides of the pie on top of the lattice, using an egg wash of 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of water to “glue” them down. Use remaining egg wash and brush it all over the top of the pie. Bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Filling
- Add apples and remaining ingredients to a large bowl. mix well and set aside.
Chai Spice
- Add all ingredients to a bowl. Mix with a spoon. Store in a small jar covered with a lid until ready to use.
