Recipes: As American as apple pie

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Left to right: autumn tree, corn, pumpkins, apple pie

I visited an apple farm in Michigan several weekends ago and brought home more apples than I knew what to do with.  After whipping up several batches of applesauce and apple bread, I wondered if this should be the year that I try tackling my nemesis, the double crusted apple pie.

I consulted cookbooks and called up friends who had had apple pie success in the past and as a result made an apple pie that actually turned out!  Here are some apple pie tips that were key to apple pie deliciousness:

For the filling:
- Never use granny smith apples in your pie, they turn out mushy
- Always pre-cook your apples, that way you avoid shrinkage during baking and space between the crust and the apples when you serve the pie

For the crust:
- A mixture of shortening and butter works best for the crust.  Shortening for the flakiness and butter for the flavor.
- When you roll out your dough, instead of using flour and running the risk of making your dough too floury (which equals hard and unflaky when baked), roll it out between two sheets of parchment. Not only will you avoid absorbing extra flour, it makes it easy to lift the crust into the pie plate.
- A glass pie pan works better than metal, you can watch the pie as it bakes to see just how brown the bottom is getting.

As long as you follow these tips you should have apple pie success!  If you want a little more direction, here is a link to a basic pie recipe I used that turned out pretty well.  I also recommend getting The New Best Recipe Cookbook by Cooks Illustrated for great visuals on dough shaping, I will be recommending this book lots in the future too, it is fantastic!