Apple Pie

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp + 1/2 cup sugar
2 lemons
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp molasses
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 stick butter
5 medium Stayman apples
1/2 cup vegetable shortening

First, make the crust: Scoop 1/2 cup vegetable shortening by teaspoons into a bowl. Keep the scoops separate in the bowl. Freeze it for at least 2 hours.

Put 2 cups flour, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1/2 tsp salt into food processor, with knife blade installed (not the dough blade). Mix the dry ingredients.

Add the frozen shortening. Mix until all shortening globules are less than pea sized. Add ~4 tbsp ice water. Mix until dough starts to hold together. If dough is still too loose after water addition, add a bit more and mix further.

Remove dough from processor. Split the dough into two halves.

With each half:

On a lightly floured surface, roll out and fold up dough at least 5 times. Flour the layers very lightly in between rolling out and folding over. After 5 rollovers, the dough should start to show some elasticity.

Roll dough out to circles, one large enough for the pieplate, one large enough for the cover.

Next, make the filling: Peel apples. Core apples. You need an apple corer if you're going to be baking pies. They're cheap; get one. Slice apples first in half, then in 1/2" arc wedges (about 5 per half).

Add apples, butter, vanilla, 1/2 cup sugar, molasses, nutmeg and cinnamon to medium saucepan. Add strained juice of 2 lemons. Simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until apples just start to soften on the outside, and syrup comes up to the top of apples in the pan. Remove from heat. Stir in 1/4 cup flour. Pour into lower pie crust.

Wet the exterior edge of the piecrust with water. Place the top piecrust on. Using a fork, mash the two crusts together along the outside edge. Cut off excess crust.

Place 5 1" long incisions in the top of the pie for venting. I space them evenly in a circle; you can get creative with the cuts if you like. Brush the top of the pie with milk, then sprinkle sugar on top. Bake at 375° F in the top third of the oven for 1 hour. The crust should be golden brown. Remove to rack to cool. Enjoy.

• Make some shortcrust pastry.
• While it's cooling happily on, slice some apples. Don't make the slices thinner than about 0.5cm, or they'll turn to mush in the oven.
• Butter a pan thoroughly and line with pastry. Using a fork, make some holes in the base.
• Curl off thin slivers of butter from a stick and spread them loosely all over the base.
• Sprinkle a goodly measure of thick, yummy brown sugar over the butter.
• Spread nutmeg and cinnamon generously.
• Now arrange the apple slices in the pan, not too neatly but so that they form a moderately flat surface.
• Repeat the spices, sugar and butter thing backwards - butter closest to the pastry lid.
• Roll out a flat sheet of pastry for the lid - don't worry about what shape it is.
• Lay the lid over the pan, press down around the edges with your fingertips and cut off any untidy edges with a sharp knife.
• Beat an egg, or a mixture of egg and strong tea for extra colour, and brush it liberally over the lid.
• Pierce holes in the lid, either with a fork or a decorative thingammiebob (it's important not to do these last steps backwards, 'cause the egg blocks the holes and you end up with exploding pie syndrome, which is tasty but inelegant).
• Bake in moderate heat for about 30 minutes or until it looks nice. Pie is extremely forgiving that way.

You can repeat the exact same steps with cherries, pears, peaches, rhubarb (well, you need to cook the rhubarb first, and anyway it's gross) etc. I'd use flaked almonds instead of cinammon with pears, though. If you make them small, you can bake 2-3 different pies all at the same time.

Best Easy Apple Pie

Ingredients

1 Pillsbury All-Ready Pie Crust
8 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated (white) sugar
1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. flour
4-5 pats of butter or margarine

Stir sugars, cinnamon, salt, and flour into sliced apples. Unfold All-Ready pie crust into 9" pie plate. Pour apple filling into pie plate. Place pats of butter or margarine on top of filling and cover with top half of pie crust. Crimp edges.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour. Serve warm with vanilla ice-cream

Ap"ple pie` (#).

A pie made of apples (usually sliced or stewed) with spice and sugar.

Apple-pie bed, a bed in which, as a joke, the sheets are so doubled (like the cover of an apple turnover) as to prevent any one from getting at his length between them. Halliwell, Conybeare. -- Apple-pie order, perfect order or arrangement. [Colloq.] Halliwell.

© Webster 1913.