These Japanese apple pies were inspired by me perusing through multiple Japanese bakery tour videos on Youtube, and seeing these adorable little scalloped half moon-shaped hand pies. In Japan, apple pies are popularly made with puff pastry, and can range from either a traditional pie shape to the more portable hand pies. So I figured, let’s make a fun take on these, using homemade puff pastry and a spiced apple filling! Now, homemade puff pastry takes time. I made a rough puff pastry, which requires cubes of butter instead of a giant butter block, and because of that, it takes a lot less time to come together. Also, the advantage here in making my own puff pastry(trust me, there are only a handful since time is being sacrificed here compared to just using frozen pastry), is that I can flavor the dough. In this case, I added apple cider into my puff dough, just to really sow that apple taste throughout the entire pie! With the filling, I cooked apples with brown butter, then stewed it down with cider, brown sugar, and cinnamon until the cubes of apples are tender. When the apples are baked into that buttery, flaky filling, the end result is reminiscent of the McDonalds apple pie, but fancier. The cider almost tastes caramelized in the pastry dough, while the apples, while soft, still have some texture without being crunchy or hard. All in all, this was a therapeutic, albeit time consuming, process and a good way to make time fly, which it definitely has felt like for this past year!

Again, this recipe is only two components: the puff pastry and the filling. The puff pastry takes a TON of time(we’re talking multiple hours) to make. The reason for this being that with any dough that requires butter lamination, there is a lot of refrigeration time between folding/layering up the dough so that the butter does not melt. You need the butter to stay cold during this process, since the only time the butter should warm up is when the dough is heated in the oven, just so that the butter layers trapped in the dough can evaporate, create steam, and that steam results in flaky, puffy layers of baked pastry. In short, expect the puff pastry to take at least 2 hours to make from start to finish. With the apple filling, it does come together really quickly, but give it ample time to cool down so that it does not prematurely melt your puff pastry dough. The dough is held together with some beaten egg, and baked with a thin layer of sugar, just to give the top a gorgeous caramelized finish. All in all, these pies look deceptively simple, but they require a lot of patience and technique. Now, if you are okay without the cider-flavored dough, you can use frozen puff pastry. I won’t blame you, but your final apple pie might not taste as apple-y as mine did. That being said, frozen puff pastry or my cider puff pastry, the end product will still capture the beautiful contrast between buttery puff pastry and tender apples that Japanese apple pies celebrate!

Makes 10 servings:
For the cider puff pastry:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 sticks unsalted butter, cubed and kept cold
A pinch of salt
1 cup apple cider, kept cold

In a bowl, combine the flour, butter, and salt, mixing until each cube of butter is coated in the flour. Pour into that the cider, and stir until a coarse, uneven dough forms around the butter cubes. Pour your relatively unmixed dough onto a plastic wrap or parchment-lined cold surface and gently push the dough into a rectangle shape and then wrap your dough. Chill down the dough for 25 minutes in the freezer. Place the cold dough onto a floured surface and roll it out to be a rectangle that is about 1 1/2 feet by 6 inches. Fold the dough into thirds, taking each end of the dough along the length and folding them into the center like a brochure or pamphlet. Re-wrap the dough and rechill it for another 20 minutes in the freezer. Repeat this step three more times. For the fifth roll, re-roll and fold it in the same fashion as before, but instead of the freezer, store the dough in the refrigerator until time to use. This will help guarantee that you will not need to wrestle or struggle with rolling out the dough when it comes time to baking with it.

For the apple filling:
2 tbsp unsalted butter
3 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into medium dice
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1/4 cup apple cider
A pinch of salt
A pinch of ground cinnamon

In a pan, start by heating up the unsalted butter until it begins to brown. To that, add in the apples first, then the other ingredients, stirring them until the browned butter is pulled into the apple cider. Allow everything to cook down on medium heat until the liquid is completely evaporated and the apples are fork-tender. Allow the filling to completely cool before attempting to use in the pies.

For assembly:
1 egg, beaten
Powdered sugar

Roll out the puff pastry to be roughly 1/16-inch thickness. Cut out 4.5-inch disks of dough, re-rolling and cutting the dough as necessary – I was able to get 10 disks out of this recipe! Brush the edges of the dough with beaten egg. Place about 3 to 4 tbsp of the apple filling into the center of each dough disk before folding the dough in half, crimping the edges together. Brush more beaten egg onto the surface of the pies. Using a paring knife, scallop the edges of the pie, and score the rounded sides of the pie two to three times. Repeat these steps with the other pies. Place each pie onto a lined sheet tray, spacing them 3 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes. Then dust powdered sugar on top of each pie, and return to the oven, baking them now at 400 degrees F for another 10 minutes.