Apple Pie

Not to be outdone, I made my husband his favorite kind of pie….APPLE!

Basic Pastry – for 9″ two-crust pie
2/3 cup shortening
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
4 – 5 Tbsp. cold water

Measure flour into a bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry cutter, until lumps are pea-size. Using cold water out of the fridge (or ice water), sprinkle in about 4 Tbsp. Stir together with a fork, adding more water, a little bit at a time, as necessary, until flour is moist enough to start gathering together into a lump, but still leaves a little flour in the bottom of the bowl. Using your hands, gather the dough together into a ball, and divide into two rounded lumps – one for the top crust, one for the bottom.

Sprinkle flour on the counter, put one lump of dough in the center and roll out with rolling pin into a circle. Rotate dough as you go, and sprinkle more flour on top and underneath, as needed, to prevent sticking. Sometimes cracks start to form along the edge. Try to mend these early on, before they get too big. When dough is rolled out into a circle about 2 inches bigger than your upside down pie pan, gently and loosely roll the dough around your rolling pin, starting at one side and going to the other. Then carefully unroll over the top of your (right-side up) pie pan, centering so that there is dough hanging over the edge all the way around. Fill the pie.

Apple Filling – for 9″ pie
6 medium-large size apples (sliced, about 7 cups – or more. I like to heap my apples fairly high, because they always shrink down during baking.) Tart, firm apples are best, such as Granny Smith.
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (I usually use the lesser amount. I don’t like pie too sweet.)
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt
2 Tbsp. (approx) butter or margarine

Peel, core, quarter and slice apples (you can either slice across – for shorter slices, or the long way, but try to keep the width of your slices about the same for even cooking). Stir sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt into sliced apples until well blended, and then pile (or arrange, if you like) into pastry-lined pie pan. Dot the top of the apples with slices of butter or margarine. Cover with the top crust.

Roll out the top crust the same way as the bottom, and place over the top of the pie using the same rolling pin method. Press the top and bottom crust together all the way around the edges to seal, then trim off the overhanging, excess dough. You can do this with a knife, but it’s probably easier and quicker to use your hands. Press your flat palms against opposite sides of the pie edge and the excess dough will be pinched off. Rotate and press all the way around the pie. Now pinch and shape the edge of the pie. I use the thumb (or finger) of one hand, and the thumb and first finger of the other, and pinch the edge all the way around. (There are other methods, such as using a fork, but the pinch method is what I usually use.) This seals the pie and also gives it a decorative edge. Then, cut slits or small holes in the top of the pie so that steam can escape. This can be decorative, as well as practical. You can also add dough cutouts – cut out shapes from extra dough and press on the top or around edges (they will stick better if you moisten the back with a bit of water). Finally (and this is optional), sprinkle the top with cinnamon-sugar.

Bake at 425*F for about 40-50 minutes, or until crust is brown, and juice begins to bubble through the slits in the crust, or when a knife is inserted through one of the slits into the apple pie, the apples feel soft enough (you don’t want them mushy, but some people like their apples softer, and others like them firmer). If you don’t want the edges over-browning, cover with a strip of aluminum foil and just remove for the last 15 minutes or so (I don’t usually bother – so the edges of my pies end up browner than the center. Oh well.)  A trick I use to prevent a boiled over pie from causing a mess in the oven is to place the pie pan in the middle of a bigger pizza pan to catch the drips while it bakes.

Eat hot or warm or cold. Especially yummy with vanilla icecream.

What to do with the excess dough? Put the strips on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, and bake for about 10 minutes (425*). Yummy snack while you wait for the pie, and the kids are bugging you for something to eat.

I learned how to make pie from my mom – although I think she usually uses a vinegar pastry recipe – so the techniques described I credit and owe to her!