Apple Pie

I have been talking about the fact that there are lots of apples growing in the ditches and in the fields around here. These are "wild" apple trees in that they were not planted by humans, but came from the seeds scattered by animals who ate apples in abandoned orchards. This post is about using some of these apples which are mostly "cooking" apples. The best way is in apple pie. We are going to friends for dinner, and I said I would take along an apple pie. Here is how I made it.

The problem with making a pie is not that it is difficult, but rather that it is messy. I roll the dough on a piece of wood that we use exclusively for rolling dough. For one pie, I use two cups of flour and a bit more than a cup of shortening. The secret is not to mix the dough too much.

I had prepared my apples yesterday. I keep the peel on, as the apples have never been sprayed, and peel gives a nice reddish color to the pie. I end up throwing away about 1/4 of each apple because, since they are not sprayed, they do have some blemishes. I cook the apples with sugar beforehand. You could put them uncooked in the pie crust, but some pieces of apple might remain rather hard. Besides, if you cook them ahead of time it allows you to make a thicker pie.

I then roll out the cover and cut in some vents to let the steam out, put on the cover and glaze it. You can use all sorts of things as a glaze (egg, milk, soya milk, etc.). In this case, I used Belsoy, a cream substitute that produces a nice glazing.

Pie glazed, ready for the oven

I usually make a bit more dough than I need to be sure I have enough. With the leftover dough, I make a jam tart/pie. It can be small or big, depending on how much dough is left. This year we made a lot of damson plum jam, so I spread damson jam on the crust and put it in the oven with my apple pie. Jam pie are ideal to have with a cup of tea in the afternoon.

Damson jam tart