CAPITAL CITY CUISINE 008
BY SHIRLEY PAGEAU, CAPITAL CITY MARKET
BAKERY & DELI AREA LEAD
SKIP TO RECIPE
My dad loved apple pie. He always threw a piece of cheese on it and then poured milk over it. I never could figure that out! But I loved to sit with him and eat my own, untampered with, piece. Fresh and still warm out of the oven…my all-time favorite dessert.
He died when I was young, so I never had the opportunity to serve him an apple pie that I had made. But ten years later, I married my husband and inherited the best father-in-law I could imagine. He also happened to love apple pie. Since my mother-in-law was not a baker, the best pie he ever had was purchased from the store or local bakery. Until I came into the picture, that is, and our friendship found its roots. My father-in-law loved coming over to enjoy my homemade apple pie.
I love to bake this recipe in the fall, when the apples are local and freshly picked. In my opinion, the absolute best apple for a traditional, unadulterated pie, is the Ida Red variety. They can be a bit harder to find this year, so Empires, Northern Spies, or even Granny Smiths make great substitutes.
I hope you enjoy my recipe, and have fun baking this traditional fall dessert!
Traditional Apple Pie - Crust
ingredients
THE CRUST
3 C All-Purpose Flour (sifted)
3/4 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 C Crisco Shortening
9 T Ice Water
THE FILLING
6-8 Cooking Apples (Ida Red, preferably)
1 T Lemon Juice
4 T Flour
1 C Sugar
1 T Cinnamon
1/4 T Nutmeg
1/8 T Salt
2 T of butter
instructions
THE CRUST
Mix together 3 C sifted all-purpose flour and ¾ teaspoon salt
With a pastry blender, cut 1 ½ C Crisco into the flour mixture.
Mix n 6 Tablespoons ICE water. Add the rest 1 T at a time, just until you have a workable paste. If you can form it all into a ball, you have added PLENTY of water.
Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
THE FILLING
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
While the pastry is chilling, peel and thinly slice 6-8 cooking apples into a large bowl. I recommend Ida Red apples.
Drizzle 1T lemon juice over the sliced apples.
Mix together 4 T flour, 1 C sugar, 1t cinnamon, 1/4t nutmeg and 1/8t salt. Add this to the apple mixture and toss lightly to coat the apples.
Remove the crust from the refrigerator and use just under ½ of it to roll out the bottom crust. Lightly dust the counter with flour and roll into about a 12” circle.
Place in 9” pie tin, making sure it goes up and just over the edges.
Fill with apple mixture. Dot the apples here and there with 2 T(total) of butter.
Roll out remaining pastry dough to about ¼” thick. This should more than cover the mound of apples. Seal and crimp top and bottom crust together. If you have extra pastry, you might like to cut out appropriate shapes with small cookie cutters to decorate the edges or top of the pie. Use just a slight amount of water to get the shapes to stick.
Place pie in oven for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. Then turn oven down to 350 degrees and leave pie in for another 40 minutes or until the crust is light golden brown.