Pioneer
Perfect Apple Pie
Aida Boyer McAnn — The New Brunswick Cook Book (1938)The 1938 cookbook's definitive recipe for New Brunswick apple pie — an open-topped deep-dish pie made with thinly sliced tart apples, butter, lemon, cinnamon and cloves, baked in an earthenware plate with a thin, flaky upper crust only.
Ingredients
For the pastry
- 1 cup flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt (if using butter, salt is not necessary)
- One-third cup butter, or half butter and half vegetable shortening, chilled
- Enough ice water to hold pastry together
For the filling
- Tart New Brunswick apples, thinly sliced (enough to fill a deep plate)
- Sugar to taste
- A bit of grated lemon rind
- A pinch each of powdered cinnamon and cloves
- Tiny lumps of butter
Instructions
- Sift the flour twice with the salt. Cut in half the chilled fat using two knives or a pastry blender until pieces are the size of a small pea. Add ice water little by little, mixing with a knife. Roll in a thin sheet, spread remaining fat on one half of the dough, fold, pat and roll out again. Wrap in waxed paper and chill thoroughly.
- Butter a deep earthenware, granite, or glass pie plate generously.
- Layer the thinly sliced tart apples in the dish, dotting each layer with tiny lumps of butter and sprinkling with sugar mixed with a little grated lemon rind and a pinch each of cinnamon and cloves. Repeat until the dish is full.
- Roll the chilled pastry out less than one-eighth inch thick. Cut two slashes in the centre. Place over the filled plate and crimp the crust dough over the edge of the dish.
- Bake in a hot oven (450°F) for the first 10 minutes, then finish in a moderate oven. Test apples with a fork — when tender and transparent, they are done.