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Homemade Apple Pie Recipe
Nothing tastes better than homemade apple pie!

This homemade apple pie recipe is a recipe my family adopted from the recipe book of my great grandmother. It is a much-loved sweet pie which never stays around long. Being my uncle’s favourite too, you always had to get in quickly.

The dough that forms the base has a similar taste and texture experience to short-bread. Year-round apples are a great filling choice. In the handed-down recipe, the apples are pre-cooked into an apple sauce. 

One day we decided to try shredding the apple and spreading them straight over the crust without the pre-cooking step. The result was tasty and had the main advantage to pass up on peeling and apple cooking time. Like this, the apple pie allows for spontaneous apple pie cravings.

The cookie tasting base invites multiple filling choices during summer. Then rhubarb sauce, red currant, raspberries or gooseberries are delicious alternatives with closed cover, net cover or even a meringue topping.

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Great Grandma's Best Apple Pie Recipe

By , May 13, 2020

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The apple pie recipe is a much-loved sweet pie which never stays around long.

whole apple pie on a plate

Prep Time: 20 minutes, 1 hour cooling
Cook time: 30 minutes
Yield: 1 Pie

Category: Dessert
Cuisine: German
Suitable for: Vegetarian Diet, Low Salt Diet

Ingredient list

Chicken eggEgg
butterButter
flourFlour
sugarSugar
baking powderBaking Powder
  • ½ cup of melted butter
  • ¼ cup of brown sugar
  • ¼ cup of sugar
  • ½ cup of desiccated coconut
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tsp of vanilla essence
  • 1 ¼ cups of flour
  • ¼ tsp of salt
  • ½ tsp of baking powder
  • ¾ cup of uncooked oats

Method to prepare the apple pie base:

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C°
  2. Place the softened butter into a bowl and mix it together with the sugars and the desiccated coconut until a creamy consistency is achieved
  3. Then add the egg and the vanilla essence and mix well
  4. Add all of the dry ingredients the flour, the baking powder and the salt and combine gradually
  5. Lastly, stir in the oats and fold in the chocolate chips. I ended up just chopping up a block of chocolate because someone had eaten all of the chocolate chips this resulted in larger chunks of chocolate in my cookies which is a bonus in my opinion
  6. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C°.

Filling for the homemade apple pie recipe

appleApple

or

rhubarbRhubarb

Filling#1 - Apple Sauce

  • 6 medium sized quartered and peeled apples
  • Cinnamon, clove
  • The juice of ½ a lemon
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar

Place 3 tablespoons of water and the apples into a saucepan.  Cook on low heat until the apples have reached a creamy consistency. Then add 1 tablespoon of sugar (depending on the sweetness of the sauce) as well as a teaspoon of cinnamon and a sprinkle of ground clove and let it cool before you spread it into the dough lined form and fully cover it or decorate it with a net.

Preheat the oven to 175C°. Convert!
Bake for about 30 minutes or until the dough has a golden brown colour.

Filling#2 - Rhubarb Sauce

  • 6 rhubarb sticks
  • Sugar to taste

Wash and peel the rhubarb, then cut it into 1 inch long pieces. Place the rhubarb into a saucepan with 3  tablespoons of water and let it simmer until it has reached a creamy consistency. Add sugar to taste and let it cool down before you spread it into the dough lined form and fully cover it or decorate it with a net.

Preheat the oven to 175C°.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until the dough has a golden brown colour.

Filling#3 - Raw Shredded Apple

  • 4 washed and shredded apples
  • Cinnamon
  • The juice of ½ a lemon
  • 1 tablespoon of sugar

Wash and chop the apples. Shred the apples in a food processor or grate them, add the lemon, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and a sprinkle of clove. Mix! Then spread the mixture into the dough lined form and choose your cover, full cover or net cover.

Preheat the oven to 175C°.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until the dough has a golden brown colour.

Alternative Use Of The 3 Remaining Egg-Whites: Meringue Cover

Beat the 3 egg whites. When you can turn your bowl upside down and the foamed egg white stays firmly in place add 6 tablespoons of icing sugar. Mix until the sugar is completely dissolved and white smooth and shiny peaks remain when removing the mixer. Spread the meringue on top of the fruit layer and place the pie in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes (or until the peaks turn golden)  at 160C°.

Variation for dry summer days:

Put the dough lined form in the oven to bake. When it is finished take out to cool for a few minutes before the fruit is added:

red currantsCurrants
gooseberryGooseberry
raspberryRaspberry
  • red currants
    or
  • gooseberries
    or
  • raspberries

Cover with a Meringue topping.

The result is an exciting combination of the sugary sweetness of a cookie from the pie crust, the sour undertone of the berries and the sweet, soft, crisp meringue topping. Fresh out of the oven this recipe becomes a highlight of a lazy summer afternoon with friends and family.

The following filling variations can be added immediately while they are still hot and covered by the meringue. It gives the meringue an extra edge because it keeps its shape while its baking through.

Tip:
Meringue is very sensitive to prepare. Use spotless clean utensils that have a smooth surface such as glass or stainless steel.

The best outcome is reached on dry days, with eggs that are older than 3 days, without any trace of egg yolk and no contact with any oil or grease this includes your hands. First beat the egg whites foamy and firm before adding at least 2 tablespoons (to keep it from shrinking) of fine sugar per 1 egg white (the finer the sugar the more easily it dissolves).

Meringue is enjoyed best when it is eaten on the day of preparation.

apple pie with shredded apple

Our adaptions to the homemade apple pie recipe

My great grandma's apple pie recipe tastes delicious, but my mum hated getting sticky fingers while kneading the dough. While kneading the buttery mixture reacted to the warmth from her hands and the dough stuck to them. Another reason that called for an adjustment was the left over egg white.

The result is a reduced amount of butter and a whole egg instead of only half. The outcome tastes less buttery but is much nicer to handle.

Ingredients to prepare the dough:

SpeltSpelt flour
Chicken eggEgg
butterButter
sugarSugar
baking powderBaking Powder
  • 2 cups spelt flour
  • 1 egg
  • 100g butter at room temperature
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

Alternatives that worked well with the homemade apple pie recipe

apple pie with apple sauce
  • Flour - 1 cup spelt and 1 cup coconut flour
  • Butter - replacing the butter with 100g sour cream

Method to prepare the apple pie recipe

Add the butter, flour, egg, sugar and baking powder together in a bowl. Knead until the dough is in one consistent non sticky mass.

Sprinkle the cake form with flour and press 2/3 of the dough into the form making sure that there is a nice rim. Poke holes all over the dough with a fork so that the dough does not rise when baked. Pour the pre-cooked apples from filling#1 or the rhubarb from filling#2 into the form or spread the shredded apples from filling#3 over the base.

Make thin strips with the rest of the dough and lay the strips in a net formation over the topping.

To get a pie like look cover the fruit sauce completely with the dough. Once again poking holes into the top.

Bake for 30 minutes or until the crust is light brown.

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