Apple Pie Traybake

Apple pie? You can can’t go wrong. Everyone loves it. Served as it is at room temperature, still warm from the oven, or dramatically flambeed with a lick of Armagnac and a scoop of melting ice cream, there is always a good excuse to enjoy the most ever-famous pie. But for that sigh of pure contentment, that moment where the table goes quiet save for the sound of forks, you must begin with three things, each made from scratch: a good quick puff pastry, buttery and formidable; the best apples, reduced to a spiced, jammy compote; and more of those same apples, thinly sliced and fanned into a precise, glazed topping. Yet even this holy trinity is not enough. It must be baked with a watchful eye and a knowing touch, until the pastry is a flawless, blistering gold, promising a shatter of flakes with every single bite. This is not a hurried, free-form tart. This is my tailored traybake pie, a generous slab of edible architecture designed for a crowd. Let’s begin.