Apple Pie

I’ve said it before; I’m not a huge baker. It stresses me out. A lot. I literally have to psych myself up to bake. In fact, on Mother’s Day I made a cheesecake that I’ve not posted because it fell apart. We ate it, it tasted good, but it was not picture perfect.

Now it was Father’s Day so I wanted to bake a special dessert. Once again, it did not turn out as I would have liked. Should I share it or hide it again? So, with some coaching from my sweet neighbor friends, it’s time to share that all of our cooking adventures are far, far from perfect.

So this is a post about making a good old fashioned Apple Pie. It’s not my recipe; it is from my 37-year-old Betty Crocker cookbook. I’ve made it many times before over the years. It just didn’t go as well this time.

Jump to recipe

There are two preps for a pie from scratch; the crust and the filling. I make the crust first (the most stressful part for me) and then refrigerate it while making the filling.

The initial making of the pasty is quite easy with just 4 ingredients; flour, salt, shortening and water. There are lots of butter crust recipes out there, but I stuck to the traditional shortening.

The original recipe does not call to refrigerate the dough, but I have found it’s easier to work with when chilled. It also gives time to make the apple mixture.

Still smiling! Slicing, cutting and chopping are somewhat therapeutic to me so I enjoy this part.

Two very special ladies helped teach me to make apple pie years ago; my Grandma (who we called Granada) and my Aunt Gerry (on my kid’s father’s side) My Grandma could whip out the crust without looking at a recipe. She would also make little crisps topped with sugar and cinnamon with the leftover dough.

Aunt Gerry could peel a whole apple in one long peel and she also taught me to not worry about making the apple slices to “pretty” as they would get covered by the curst anyway.

Here is one of my mistakes, I cut the slices a bit too thin. This caused them to fall apart in the long baking, which made more of an apple “sauce” out of the filling.

All tossed and ready to go

We do add a bit more cinnamon than the recipe calls for as we love the flavor.

See how those apple slices are really thin?

Rolling the dough is the trickiest part. Like anything, the more you do it the better you’ll get at it. This is only the 2nd dough I’ve rolled out in a year.

First crust successfully in the pie dish!

(Still smiling too)

Now it was time to place the top crust on. It fell apart and tore. I’d handled the dough so much I didn’t want to roll it out again. I just tried to “patch” the top crust, hoping it would get better with cooking.

You’re supposed to place foil on the outer edge for the first 30 minutes or so. I forgot and did not remove it until after cooking for 40 minutes. Now the problem was the crust was not brown enough. So I cooked it longer for a total of about 55 minutes. This created another problem.

It doesn’t look too bad? You can see the patching but not horrible. I put a bit of sugar and cinnamon on top of the pie the last few minutes of baking.

Note to get this picture, I wiped the edge of the pie dish for about 5 minutes to make it look somewhat picture worthy.

See how the apple slices now appear as apple “mush?”

It tasted good but it was far mushier than I would have liked. Also, the crust was too salty. I believe I might have doubled the salt accidently. Some liked the salty, others did not. :(

The family ate it. It got mixed reviews.

So there you have it. This hobby of ours is truly “adventures in cooking.” Sometimes we get it right and sometimes not so good. The recipe below is the exact recipe from the book, so if you make it, learn from my mistakes and I am sure it will turn out fine.

Yield: 8

Author: Betty Crocker 1981

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Apple Pie

A traditional apple pie from the iconic Better Crocker kitchen

Prep time: 1 HourCook time: 45 MinTotal time: 1 H & 45 M

Ingredients

8" Two-Crust Pastry

• 2/3 cup + 2 tablespoons shortening
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4-5 tablespoons cold water

Fresh Apple Pie

• Pastry for two crust pie
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• Dash of salt
• 5 cups peeled and thinly sliced tart apples; about 5 medium (Granny Smith works well)
• 1 tablespoon butter

Instructions

Pastry

1. Cut shortening into flour and salt until particles are the size of small peas.  Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing with a fork until all the flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans the side of the bowl. (1-2 tablespoons water can be added)
2. Gather pastry into two balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate while making pie filling or up to 2 hours.

Fresh Apple Pie

1. Heat Oven to 425 degrees
2. Peel the apples and slice.  To keep from browning, toss with a bit of lemon juice in a bowl.
3. In a large bowl mix sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.  Stir in the apples.  
4. Remove pastry from the refrigerator. Remove plastic from the first pastry ball and place onto a floured surface.  Roll gently with a rolling pin until the pastry is about 2 inches larger than the pie plate.  Gently place in the pie plate.  (Dough can be folded in quarters and then unfolded in pie plate for ease)
5. Pour the apple mixture into the pastry in the pie plate.  Dot with butter.
6. Repeat the dough rolling process with the second pastry ball.  Place on top of apple mixture.  Press the edges together and seal.  Flute with your fingertips.  Cut slits on top of the crust.
7. Cover the edge with a 3 inch strip of aluminum foil.  
8. Bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes more until the crust is brown and juice begin to bubble through the slits.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  Serve with ice cream or whipping cream. Enjoy!

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