Step 1: Go to Wal-Mart at 2 a.m. to buy all the ingredients you need. (If you
already have all the ingredients you need, you obviously know what you're doing. Why
are you reading this page?)
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This is what the ingredients look like assembled. |
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Step 2: Assemble the ingredients.
| Crust: 2/3 c. shortening
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
5 tbsp. cold water
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Filling: 1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch of salt
6 to 8 medium-sized apples
2 tbsp. butter |
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| This is what the ingredients look like stacked on top of
each other (minus the apples; yeah, you balance 8 apples end to end . . .). |
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Step 3: Measure the shortening into a bowl. Mmmm,
shortening. An American favorite. It actually should be called
"widening." |
| Step 4: Form the shortening into a little mountain .
. . |
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. . . and surround it with a little flour sea. At this
point, you could add little mountain climbers and trees if you like. Personally, I
find they detract from the pie's texture. |
Step 5: Mix the shortening with the
flour and salt until it forms little pea-sized particles. I start with the spatula,
but I end up finishing it by hand (I have to wash my hands like five times while making a
pie . . .). |
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Step 6: Add water to the dough one tablespoon at a
time until the dough is moist enough to form into a ball. It looks kind of like a brain
. . .
Mmmmmm, brraaaaiiiiinnnnnsssss . . . Oh, sorry. |
| Step 7: Perform some brain surgery by slicing the
ball in half and putting half of the dough aside. |
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I think I can see the prefrontal cortex . . . |
| Step 8: Roll the dough out on a floured
countertop. I try to roll it out, fold it and roll it out again a few times to get
that "flaky layered crust" effect. Sometimes it works, sometimes it
doesn't. |
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Step 9: It gets tricky here. It's very easy to
"tear" the dough. I separate the dough from the counter top with a
spatula, slide a dinner plate under the dough as I peel it up and then slide it back off
into the pie plate. But whatever works for you. I suppose rolling it out on
waxed paper might work. Or mixing helium with the dough so it floats off the
counter. |
| One homemade pie crust, waiting in the pie plate. Yeah,
it's a little ugly. I'm not so good at crusts yet. I have to
"patch" the places where it tears. |
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On to the pie filling! Here we have the apples in a
lineup, looking shifty . . . |
| Step 10: Slice and peel the apples. I have this
little apple corer thingy that slices and cores the apples for you (by putting it on top
of the apple and pushing down on it with all your weight). I then peeled the slices
individually. It made a mess. I had apple juice all over the counter, on the
floor, in my eyes, etc. My shoes were sticking to the floor by the time I was
done. Lisa has since advised me that I should peel the apples before
slicing and coring them.
If I plan on making this type of pie again, I'm going to have to get faster at
preparing the apples. They took forever. |
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One bowl of neatly sliced and peeled apples. |
| Step 11: Combine the sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon
and salt in a bowl. Add the apples and shake to coat. |
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Step 12: Pour apple filling concoction into the
pastry-lined pie plate. The recipe I used said to use 8 apples, but I only sliced and
peeled 6 before getting tired. Good thing I stopped, because 6 was more than
enough. |
| Step 13: Dot with butter. I also drizzled some
caramel (the kind used for dipping apples, 'cause that's all I had) onto it as an
afterthought. |
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Step 14: Take the remaining dough and construct the
top crust. Here I've rolled it out and folded it to be rolled out again. |
| This is a little thing my mom bought me that makes the
fancy "grid pattern" in the dough. Basically it punches out little squares
that you then have to remove by hand. Some people prefer to make strips of dough and
layer them in a pattern, but I have enough trouble with the crusts as it is. |
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Here's the pie with top pastry in place (using the same
spatula-and-dinner-plate method, which is even more fun when the pastry has lost half of
its tensile strength). The dough squares that I removed with a paring knife are
stacked in a little pile to the left. The shiny metal thing is an edge protector that
keeps the edges from burning in the oven. It also provides a handy screen to prevent
you from seeing how horribly disfigured the edges are. |
| Step 15: Bake 40-50 minutes at 425 degrees. Here
is the completed pie, fresh from the oven. The lattice work cracked in a few places,
but since it doesn't have to stop a bullet or support a building, I don't suppose it
really matters. |
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Here is the completed pie ready for transport. My
grandmother gave me the cover for Christmas last year (everyone in the family got one; I
guess she buys them in bulk or something). It wasn't labeled and I assumed it was a
pie cover. I put it with my pie plates and little grid-pattern-maker-thingy and
forgot about it until I wanted to make a pie for Thanksgiving (11 months later).
When I walked into my parents' house carrying the pie under the pie cover, my mom said
"Oh, that's a very creative use for that." I said "What, the pie
cover?" She said "It's not a pie cover. It's for covering your plate
in the microwave."
You would think someone would have mentioned that at the previous Christmas . . .
It fits the pie plates anyway, so I still use it as a pie cover. Take that, intended
use! |
Step 16: Take the pie to work and let your coworkers eat it while making jokes
about poisons and antidotes . . .
Everyone at work said it was good. I'm not sure if that means it was actually
good or they didn't want to hurt my feelings. I kept track of who gave the best
compliments.
They'll get the antidote on Thursday . . . |
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