All-American Apple Pie Recipe by Andy Buck

February 3, 2023

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Are you ready to make an award-winning apple pie? Well, you do not have to walk this to a baking contest to know it’s a winner. Great ingredients and simple steps will lead to success. From a subjective point of view, this is by far the best pie I have ever made. It was delicious, and there was nothing particularly original about it. I checked out two web pages and Bob’s Red Mill Flaky Apple Pie recipe (see links below) to get my bearings. They appear similar in terms of fundamentals. I admit that I need to work on my skills in terms of pie crust forming and handling. It was good, but a little tricky this time around. Maybe the butter was not cold enough at the outset. A little love and determination were helpful when it was not all smooth sailing. In the end, it all came together. Below are my tweaks to an American classic and a few helpful hints.

Starting with helpful hints:

Use an Apple Corer/Slicer – Makes life easy and it is so cool.
Use a food processor to blend your butter with flour mixture for your pie crusts. Save time and effort.
Place a small cookie sheet with edges on the bottom shelf of your oven to catch any juice overflow. (I used tinfoil and some of the liquid oozed right onto the bottom of the oven anyway.)

Process:

Shop and gather your ingredients and tools as needed.
Make your pie crust (two rounds) and refrigerate it.
While the pie crust is stabilizing in the fridge, make the apple pie filling in a big bowl.
After making the apple pie filling, roll out the bottom pie crust and place it in a glass pie pan.
Fill with the Apple filling. Mound it up.
Cover with the top crust. Fold and seal the edges. Coat with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and coarse raw sugar.
Bake at 425o for 15 minutes and then 350o for another 35 minutes. Cool for 5-6 hours.

Delicious Pie Crust

2 ½ Cups of Bob’s Red Mill Pastry Flour

1 Tbsp of Sugar

½ tsp of Salt

1 Cup of butter (2 very cold sticks) cut into small chunks.

7-8 Tablespoons of ice-cold water

Directions: Blend the dry ingredients in a bowl. Pour it into a large food processor. Place in the butter Cover securely. Pulse a few times then hit the on button. Mix till well blended (Not too long). Pour into a cold bowl. Mix in cold water 1 Tablespoon at a time, stirring with a fork. Mix until it starts to stick together. Pour it out onto a surface and form into two equal sized balls. Wrap and refrigerate.

Apple Pie Filling:

Peel. Core, and Slice 8-9 Apples and place in a large mixing bowl. In the pie pictured here, I used a blend of the following variety of apples:

Honey Crisp
Granny Smith
Pink Lady
Envy

I believe that using a variety of apples provides a structure and flavor combination that cannot be beat.

Apple Pie Filling Sugar-Spice Coating:

1 stick of Butter (8 Tablespoons)

2 tsp of Cinnamon

¼ tsp of Nutmeg

2 Tablespoons of water

3 Tablespoons of Tapioca Flour (Finely ground – not pearls)

2 Tablespoons of Cornstarch

½ Cup of Brown Sugar

½ Cup of Granulated Sugar

In a separate saucepan, slowly melt butter. Once the butter has melted completely, add 2T of water. Whisk in tapioca flour and cornstarch. When that is all incorporated /dissolved, add sugar and spices. Mix thoroughly. Pour into the large bowl with prepared apple slices. Mix thoroughly so all the apple pieces are coated with the liquid sugar-spice mix.

After you have completed the apple pie filling above, follow the steps outlined in the baking process described previously (starting at process step #4). Roll out your pie crust (one at a time). Be generous with flouring the surface where you are rolling out the pie shell. To make an egg wash, whisk an egg in a small measuring cup or bowl and add 1 Tablespoon of milk or water. Use a soft pastry brush to coat the top pie shell. (See Process step #6). Sealing the edges of your pie is important, otherwise the juice may leak out while baking in the oven. Also, allow the apple pie to cool for 5-6 hours since this uses a blend of tapioca and cornstarch instead of flour as a thickening agent. If you decide to use a prepared Gluten-Free Pie Crust mix, that would make this an entirely Gluten-free recipe.

Bon Appetit!