Pi Day

3.14159265...  Oh pi.  What a fantastically rounded number you are *duh dun chhhhhhhh*.  For those of you who were unaware, yesterday was Pi Day (March 14, or 3-14).  Basically, it's a day where closet nerds like me can geek out and celebrate a day that revolves around math.  In honor of this most circular of days, I made an apple pie!

When I told C I was thinking about making an apple pie (his favorite kind, other than 3.14 of course), it was as if Pavlov and his dogs had taught him a thing or two... his eyes got huge, he started to salivate, and his tail started to wag... OK his tail didn't really start to wag, but if he was a dog, there would have been some serious waggage going on.  Anyway, the pie idea was blessed on the condition that it would NOT be making its way to either of our offices.

Now I know many of you out there are scared of pie.  You think it's going to turn out terrible - it's too hard, the filling will be gross, and forget making your own crust!  Have no fear!  I'm going to guide you through making my grandma's apple pie a step at a time so that by the end of this post your bake-a-pie-aphobia will be no more.

First things first, you need your ingredients:

For the crust -
2c all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c shortening
6-8 tbsp ice water (yes, you want ice water - just fill a glass, put some cubes in it, and let it sit until you're ready for it)

For the filling - 
1-2 c sugar (there's a range here because it depends on how tart your apples are and how sweet you like your pie)
6 medium tart apples (peeled, cored, and thinly sliced)
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp flour

Now don't panic, but we're going to make a pie crust... well, actually 2.  Combine the flour and salt from the crust ingredients in a medium size bowl.  Cut in the shortening until it looks like coarse sand (some pea sized pieces of shortening are fine - the idea here is just to get things mixed together really well.  Now you might be asking yourself (and by association, me) what "cutting in" means.   Good question!  If you have a pastry blender, perfect - use that and mash it around in the bowl until the above texture is reached.  Don't have one?  No worries!  Pull out two butter knives and act like you're cutting something up for a little kid to eat.  Cut through the ingredients enough and you'll get to the right texture. 

When your ingredients are good and cut in, add the water 1 tbsp at a time over small portions of the mixture.  You want to mix the water in just enough to moisten the part that you poured it over.  (I generally pull the moistened part over to one side of the bowl so that it doesn't get overly wet).  When all of your dough is moistened, it should look something like this:

Form the dough into a ball, divide in half, and put half onto a floured surface (a few tablespoons and no more than 1/4 cup). It should look like this:

Now comes the fun part - beating the crapola out of the dough.  OK, not really... but I find rolling the most fun part of the process.  Use a rolling pin (if you have one - if you don't a flat bottle or glass will work just fine.  Heck, I've even used a wine bottle before!) to roll the dough out into about a 12in circle.  Do this carefully.  Sprinkle flour over the dough and rub some on your rolling pin.  You'll want to rotate the dough 1/4 of a turn after rolling back and forth for the first few passes so that it comes out in a circular shape.  Once it starts to get thin, just roll in various directions to keep the circular shape that you worked so hard to get.  Dough sticking?  No worries, just sprinkle some more flour over the dough/put some on your rolling pin.  Tore your dough?  It's ok - remember that ice water from before?  Think of it like the glue of the pastry world.  Dab a little on one side of the tear, put the other side over top, and pat down.  Good as new!  Your dough should look like this:

Now comes the tricky part - you want to roll your dough around your rolling pin.  Start at one edge (I start at the far edge), wrap the dough around your pin, and then gently roll toward you (think of it like rolling up wrapping paper).  Now gently place the dough in your pie plate and smooth it out so that the dough lines the plate evenly.

Whew, half done!  At this point your kitchen should look something like this, and if it doesn't you've gone terribly terribly wrong:

Now is a good time to preheat your oven - set that bad boy to 375 degrees.  Alright, now for the apples.  Remember everything from your filing list?  Dump it in a huge bowl, mix it together, and dump half in the pie shell.  Sprinkle a little more flour (maybe 1 tbsp) over the apples, then add the remaining apple mix.  Don't worry if it looks like it's going to overflow.  It's supposed to look like that since it will bake down in the oven.  See?

Now put some pats (small pieces) of butter on top of that, roll out the other half of the dough the same way you did for the bottom crust, and then lay it on top. 

Fold the top crust under the bottom crust to form an edge, then use a fork to press the dough together.  THis creates a seal that keeps the ooey gooeyness inside of the pie and not on the bottom of your oven.  You'll also want to cut a vent (aka holes) into the top of your pie to let steam escape while it's baking.  The one on my pie is something we do in our family called the "tree of life," but feel free to make whatever design you want.

You can brush the top with an egg wash or milk if you want it to glaze over, but I opt to leave mine naked for the more rustic, au naturale appearance.  Put this sucker in the oven for 40-45 min until the top is nice and golden (or until the boy starts asking every 30 seconds if the pie is done), like this:

And voila!  You made a pie!  Now I know this will be difficult, but you need to let it rest for about 30 minutes so that you don't cut into soup pie.  Patience will pay off, I promise.  Enjoy!