Awesome Apple Pie

With the holidays approaching, I wanted to try to make a rendition of my Nana's Apple Pie. Her pie is certainly a family favorite, though is sometimes overshadowed by more chocolaty desserts. The crust is delectably light and flaky, and often rises up fairly high. She puts a sprinkle of sugar on the top of the crust to really enhance the sweetness and make it quite delicious and tasty.



While I did not have an exact recipe to follow as she does not use one, I did use a 1953 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that I found at the Salvation Army for $2! The cookbook is awesome and has all sorts of foods that I grew up with and came to love. You will not find many of the recipes in the more modern cookbooks, so this one will certainly be used whenever I crave comfort food.




Back to the pie. Let me preface with this- Jack will not eat foods that are not tooth achingly sweet, so in order for him to really love this pie, I had to come up with some sort of concoction involving loads of sugar. That said, I added a little more sugar to the apple filling than called for, and then put together a cinnamon whipped cream. That put the icing on the er, pie!



I have to admit that I struggled a pit with the crust as I do not think I added enough water, but all in all, it was delicious! I will definitely be making it again, or some sort of variation of it- maybe caramel apple!



Pie Pastry- for a double crusted pie
2 cups enriched flour (APF)
1 tsp salt
2/3 c. shortening, chilled
6-7 tbsp water

Sift together flour and salt. Cut the shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles course meal. Sprinkle water, a tablespoon at a time over mixture, and mix together with a fork. Divide the dough in half. Form a ball and flatten slightly. Roll onto a well floured surface. Place this half into pie pan and pre bake in preheated oven (450) for 12 minutes. Roll out the second pie crust when ready to put on top of filled pie.

Apple Pie Filling
5-7 tart apples- I used 3 different varieties- Granny Smith, Jonagold, and Macintosh
3/4-1 cup of sugar
2 tbsp APF
Dash of Salt
1 tsp of cinnamon- I put in an additional 1/2 tsp
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp butter

Pare apples and slice thin. Mix sugar, flour, salt, spices and add to apples. Fill the pre-baked pie crust with filling and dot with butter. Put on the top crust and back in 400 degree oven for 50 minutes. Check occasionally to see if crust is burning. If it starts to brown too quickly, place a sheet of tin foil on top.