Aunt Mary’s Homemade Apple Pie
My mother’s sister, Aunt Mary, loved to bake and her talented hands created all types of Italian and American pastries and pies. She was particularly fond of making “homemade apple pies” and we could usually expect one or two of her pies for our Sunday dinners and holidays.
Her pie crust was always light and flaky. She liked to use a combination of well chilled butter and solid shortening (Crisco). The well-chilled fats are “cut” into all-purpose flour, using a pastry cutter, to resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Then teaspoons of ice cold water are added to bind all the ingredients and the dough is gathered up into a ball and cut into 2 pieces. The dough pieces are wrapped in clear plastic and placed in refrigerator to rest before rolling it out. The recipe below will give you enough for a double crust.
I used Gala apples for this pie but you can use a variety of sweet and/or tart apples of your choosing. Honey Crisp and Golden Delicious are some of my other favorites. All of these apple varieties are sweet and keep their shape during baking process. I used about 3 lbs of apples for one pie, about 8 cups….don’t be skimpy…the more apples the better the pie.
The thinly sliced apples are combined with a few teaspoons of lemon juice to prevent browning followed by white and brown sugars, cinnamon and few tablespoons of flour ( as a thickener). The apples are dotted with butter before covering the dough on top. The top cover of dough is brushed with eggwash and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar… The pie bakes in a 350 degree oven for approx 1 hour or until contents start to bubble and crust turns golden brown. I had a few extra pieces of dough and made a flower design on top.
- 3 lbs apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly- (about 8 cups)
- 2 tablespoons. lemon juice
- 3 tbsp. white flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 4 tbsp. butter, sliced
- 1 egg scrambled in a cup. (eggwash for top dough)
- cinnamon sugar for dusting top of dough
- Recipe for double Pie Crust
- 2-1/2 cups all purpose flour- (I used King Arthur unbleached flour)
- 3/4 teaspoon. salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, (1 stick) chilled and sliced
- 1/3 cup vegetable shortening (chilled)
- 6- 10 tablespoons of ice cold water
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Prepare dough and cut into 3 disks and wrap dough in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator to rest
- Peel, core and slice apples thinly and place apples in a large mixing bowl.
- Add lemon juice, flour, white and brown sugars and cinnamon, mix well and set aside.
- Remove pie disks from refrigerator and roll out top and bottom crust into 11-12″ circle, use extra flour if sticky. Set aside on wax paper.
- Transfer one dough circle to 9″ plate and allow sides to overlap for crimping
- Pour apples into pie plate, dot apples with butter slices.
- Cover top of pie with other dough, gather up edges of pie and crimp to seal.
- Make slits on top of pie. .
- Brush dough with eggwash and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
- Place pie on cookie sheet and bake for approx 45-60 minutes or until dough is lightly brown and contents are bubbling.
- Remove pie from oven and let rest for 1 hour before serving.
- Serve pie warm or room temp with vanilla ice cream. Yum!!
