This apple pie won me the $300 top prize in 2008 at my church fair!
Over the years baking apple pies has been a passion of mine since apple is my favorite pie! I have several favorite apple pie recipes that I love all for different reasons and I use them all! You can find some of my other favorite apple pie recipes on my website.
I like to use Granny Smith apples or Rhode Island Greening apples for this particular apple pie recipe.
In this recipe I slice the apples very thin with a food processor rather than hand chopping the apples. You can slice them very thin by hand also if you don’t have a food processor with a slicing attachment. This recipe has less sugar than most apple pie recipes, so thinly slicing the apples is best. You can really taste the apples too, more than the sugar.
The egg pie crust is one of my favorite “from scratch” pie dough recipes.
See the slideshow for more pictures of different times I’ve made this pie.
Enjoy!
My Contest-Winning Apple Pie!
Equipment
- 9-inch Pie Plate
- Pie Shield
- Pastry Brush
Ingredients
- CRUST
- 1 cup shortening
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons water
- FILLING
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¼ cup flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 8 cups apples peeled and sliced thin (Granny Smith or Rhode Island Greening)
- 2 tablespoons butter
- TOPPING
- 1 egg white beaten
- 1 tablespoon sugar to sprinkle on top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425º.
- CRUST
- In a mixer on low speed, mix all the crust ingredients together to form a dough. Shape the dough into 2 balls.
- Roll out one ball of dough into about a 12-inch circle. Place the dough into a 9-inch pie plate. Cut the excess dough to leave a half-inch overhang on the edge. Save that extra dough for mini cut-out designs to put on top of the pie. Set aside.
- FILLING
- In a large bowl, use a rubber spatula to mix the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt together. Set aside.
- Core and peel the apples. Use a food processor with a slicer, to slice the apples very thin. Use any slicer you have. You can thinly slice the apples by hand with a sharp knife also.
- Add the sliced apples to the dry mixture. Use a rubber spatula to coat the apples well.
- Pour the apple filling mixture into the pie shell.
- Dot small pieces of the butter all over the top of the filling.
- Roll out the second ball dough to about a 12-inch circle and place it on top of the pie filling.
- Fold the top edge under the bottom edge, pressing them together to seal.
- Flute the edges of the pie any way you wish.
- Use mini pie cutters to decorate the top of the pie. Brush a bit of water under each decoration piece so it will stick to the top of the pie shell.
- Use a pie shield around the edges of pie to prevent the edges from getting too brown.
- With a sharp knife, make about 4 or 5 very tiny cuts on top of the pie.
- Bake the pie at 425° for 30 minutes.
- Remove the pie from the oven and use oven mitts to remove the pie shield.
- Using a pastry brush, to brush the beaten egg white all over the top of the pie and then sprinkle the sugar on top of the egg white. Place the pie shield back over the edges of the pie.
- Bake the pie for 10-15 minutes more, or until you see the filling start to bubble on top in the slits.
- Cool the pie on a wire rack.
- Store the pie covered in the refrigerator.