Mary Ellen's Homemade Apple Pie
Best served warm with real whipped cream (never use the gross tubs of “Cool Whip”!) or homemade vanilla ice cream!
Servings: 2 10" pie pans
Ingredients
Crust--Note that this makes four crusts, one for the bottom and top of each pie:
- 5 cups flour — I use organic all-purpose flour
- 2 cups shortening — I use this shortening or you could also use leaf lard.
- 1 teaspoon vinegar
- 1 large egg
- Dash of salt-- this sea salt is my favorite
- Water
Filling (for two pies):
- 6 pounds Macintosh or Ida Red apples-- organic apples are best since apples are highly sprayed.
- 4 Tablespoons flour
- 1 cup sugar — I use organic cane sugar or organic palm sugar
- 4 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 10 thick pats of butter-- see why I love her?!
- Little bit of milk for moistening
Instructions
- Peel and thinly slice apples, about 1/8" thick. (Set aside the peels but don't toss them, they're so good to snack on by themselves or maybe with a little cinnamon. Organic apples are too valuable to waste any part of them!) Mix flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together, then stir in the apples and toss around well. Set aside until your bottom crust is ready.
- Make your crust... Mary Ellen starts out with her pastry blender then uses her hands to bring it together, but I use my food processor. Mix flour and shortening together. Add vinegar, egg and salt and mix well. While it's still running, add 1/2 cup water and then keep drizzling a little more water at a time until a ball forms, probably another 1/4 cup or so. (It depends on which flour you're using.)
- Separate the dough equally into 4 pieces. Cover 3 pieces of dough with sprayed plastic wrap while you work with one at a time. Using a rolling pin (and more flour as needed to keep everything from sticking), roll out one crust at a time onto a floured surface until it's s a little bigger than your pie pan. Roll the crust carefully over the rolling pin, carry to your ungreased pie pan, and then unroll, being careful not to let it rip. (If it does, just smush it back together.) Carefully press the dough into the bottom and edges of the pan.
- Pour the filling over the top and place 5 thick pats of butter around the top of the filling.
- Repeat rolling with the top crust. Moisten the edges with a little milk, so your top crust will stick to the bottom. Move your top crust onto the filling, pinch the edges together and tuck the crust under all around the edges. It doesn't have to look perfect! Don't forget to make 4 slits in the top so it doesn't explode in your oven.
- Bake at 400* until a light golden brown (or a lower temp if your oven runs hot like mine does), start checking it after 40-50 minutes or so. If the edges start to get too brown, cover them with these edge protectors as the rest of the crust gets golden too.
- Once it's out of the oven, you'll want to let it cool so the filling sets up a bit, otherwise it'll be runny. You can make this a day ahead and just cover overnight. Enjoy!