802Projects

802Projects Apple Pie

I have been making this Apple Pie for years and everyone seems to love it. It does make a mess of the kitchen, so when I make pie... I make a lot of pie. Usually every fall I do this during Apple Season. I'll make 6-7 pies, cook one, and then freeze the rest. Then throughout the year anytime I want a pie... I simply pull it from the freezer and cook it. This recipe is for an 8" aluminum pie pan (measured at the bottom). You can usually get 3 packs at Dollar General for $1. If your pan is bigger you could do some math to adjust the ingredients.

Crust

Believe it or not, there are only 4 ingredients in the crust. I just use All Purpose Flour from Walmart. You can use real Crisco or Hannaford Shortening, they both come out well. If you don't want to use milk in the crust, you can substitute it with water. I prefer milk as it helps the crust brown better. Regardless of the liquid, make sure it is cold.

- 1 Cup All Purpose Flour- 1/3 cup Crisco or Shortening
- 1/2 tsp Salt- 3 to 4 tablespoons of Milk (I use 2%)

  1. Add the flour, salt, and shortening to a bowl
  2. The shortening will likely resemble a puck as you just measured it. I use the edge of a fork to start chopping it up and shoveling flour over the pieces. Then use the slits of the fork to chop it up even more.
  3. When the Shortening is pretty well chopped up and blended in flour, this is where I add the milk. Don't pour in all the milk at once. Do 1 tbsp at a time. Technically I don't even measure it. I just eye ball a little out of the carton. Pour some in, then chop/blend/stir it around with the fork prongs, then repeat. Doing it little by little helps give you a flaky crust.
  4. Eventually the dough starts to come together and form a solid mass. You can stop with the fork and use your hands to form a ball. Here is the progression:
  5. Spread flour out on a clean dish towel or pie mat. Then roll out the dough so it is big enough for your pan. Put the pan upside down on top of the rolled out dough then flip everything together to get the dough into the pan.
  6. Use your hands to tuck the dough down into the pan and into the corners. Then use a knife to trim the overhang. If the dough didn't quite cover everywhere or you get a tear, you can use some of the overhang scrap to repair it. Assuming I don't have a lot of scrap, I normally just break it up and toss it into the pie.
  7. Make the filling (see below) and add it to the pie. The apple pile should be higher than the edges of the crust and form a little mound. You don't want a flat top pie at this point as when it cooks the apples will settle down.
  8. Repeat the process above to make another crust. If your bottom crust seemed a little too dry (meaning it didn't flatten out easy when rolling, or it cracked easy), you can use a little more Shortening. I usually use a little bit more for the top crust (as in I don't scrape the top off on the 1/3 measuring cup) as that is the visible part.
  9. Once the dough is rolled out, use the mat/towel to flip it on top of the filling. Start in the center of the pie and use your hands to tuck the dough down against the apple pile so it conforms to it. This will pull the edges inward.
  10. Trim the overhang with a knife. If you have any holes in the top crust, you can use some overhang scrap to repair it. You can lay the scrap over the hole and kind of peck around the edges quickly with your finger to blend it in.
  11. Now we are going to try and seal the edges of the pie by tucking the edge of the top crust under the edge of the bottom crust. Go to the edge of the crust and gently lift the top crust up slightly. Use you fingers to pull the bottom crust edge inward. Then fold the top crust under the bottom crust edge and squish the edge down with your fingers. Work your way around the entire edge.
  12. Go around the entire edge again, this time with a fork adding just enough pressure to leave some marks. Then poke some holes in the top of the crust with your fork to allow steam to escape when cooking.
  13. From here you are ready to cook or freeze the pie. If cooking, preheat oven to 375 and cook on a pan in the center of the oven for an hour (rotate it 180 degrees half way through cooking). If freezing, I like to add aluminum foil to the top of the pie and slide everything into a 1 gallon freezer bag. A frozen pie can be cooked the same way, only it may need an extra 10-15 minutes of cooking time. I usually set the timer for an hour still, and then check on it and add more time as needed. The top crust should start to show some browning when its done.

Filling

For my recipe it usually takes 4-5 apples. If I'm buying apples I'll often do a blend of Honeycrisp and Macintosh. I get a lot of Apples though from my Uncle who has several trees out back.I have no idea what kind they are. I also use a spiral apple peeler that peels and removes the cores at the same time. Then I can break up the spiral with my hands.

- 4-5 apples- 1 tbsp butter (salted)- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Nutmeg- 1/8 cup white sugar- 1/8 cup brown sugar
- 1/8 cup flour

  1. Peel the apples and cut it into small chunk. Add everything to a bowl. Obviously throw away any bad parts of the apple.
  2. Add the ingredients above. For the butter, I add it cold. I use the tbsp marks right on the stick wrapper to cut a slice. Before dropping it in the bowl I chop that slice into 4-5 pieces.
  3. Mix everything together with your hands.

Warm pie is better than cold pie. Anytime I'm serving pie that isn't fresh out of the oven, I will zap the slice in the microwave for 15-20 seconds. I also recommend having it with vanilla ice cream. If you want to go all out, you could drizzle some caramel and whipped cream on top. If you try any of these recipes out, let me know how it goes.