Apple Pie & Crust

From the Kitchen of: Paula Dean

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
• Freshly ground nutmeg, to taste
• 7 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced

Directions

• 3 tablespoons butter, diced
• Egg wash, for brushing
• Sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Mix together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. In another bowl, sprinkle apples with the juice of 1 lemon and toss. Stir in the sugar mixture to evenly coat the apples.

Set aside. Roll out chilled dough into 2 circles and use 1 round to line a 9-inch pie pan. Chill the other round.

Mound the apple and sugar mixture into the pie pan lined with dough. Dot with the cubed butter.

Using a pastry cutter, cut an even number of strips from the remaining rolled out dough. Transfer every other strip to the pie top and weave in the lattice by folding every other strip back onto itself and laying another strip perpendicularly. Fold the strips back across and repeat until completed.

Brush the top of the pie with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Trim the overhanging dough and crimp edges.

Bake pie for 45 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before slicing.

Perfect Pie Crust:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 3 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, cold
• 12 tablespoons butter, cold and cubed
• 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup ice water

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt and sugar. Add the shortening and break it up with your hands as you start to coat it all up with the flour. Add the cold butter cubes and work it into the flour with your hands or a pastry cutter. Work it quickly, so the butter doesn't get too soft, until the mixture is crumbly, like very coarse cornmeal. Add the ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together forming a dough. Bring the dough together into a ball.

When it comes together stop working it otherwise the dough will get over-worked and tough. Divide the dough in half and flatten it slightly to form a disk shape. Wrap each disk in plastic and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. On a floured surface roll each disk out into a 10 to 11-inch circle to make a 9-inch pie.

Yield: 2 (9-inch) pie crusts