Including the vagaries of love versus a soggy bottom.
Joseph Mackereth
It is apple harvest season here in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. It’s a time of celebration. It also brings back so many memories of helping my Grandma Grace make a year’s worth of apple butter in a cast iron pot outside over a fire. She declared that it was not a witch’s cauldron but just an old pot, though I was not convinced. That pot certainly made magic happen. It looked like a cauldron. Plus, she’d inherited it from her mother, Rose, who I swear was overflowing with old-time Appalachian herb and medicinal magic. I wonder what happened to that pot.
I like apple butter, I like applesauce, but who can beat a good apple pie when it’s presented with home-churned vanilla ice cream. Of course, I thought Grandma’s apple pie was sensational, the very best. She made it out to be something special, saying that family secrets were involved in getting just the perfect bite of pie.
My grandparents had several apple trees. There was the Black Twig apple, the Buckingham apple, a couple of scrub apples that were used to keep the pigs and cows happy, and the revered Pink Lady apple, which was the only one suitable for making pies, according to Grandma.
Pink Lady apples make a great pie, this is the absolute truth. But they also make great storing apples since they put off less ethylene gas than most other cultivars, making them slow to rot and will happily over winter in a cool, somewhat dry place. That means pie all year. One of my uncles, Chet, made his own cedar casket fearing that the store-bought ones wouldn’t be long or wide enough, and kept it under his bed as apple storage until he needed it himself. We are a practical people, my family.
I think Grandma wanted the whole pie making process to appear difficult and precise so pies would be special and we didn’t bother her to make them all the time. The planets had to practically align for the time to be right to bake a pie.
So whenever Grandpa said, “Grace, can we have an apple pie this weekend?” the whole pixie-dust ladened process started. Grandma’s answer if she didn’t have too much else to do, would always be, “Well, if you can find me four pounds of unblemished Pink Ladies and you make the ice cream, we’ll do it.”
Yeah! There’s gonna be pie! Let’s get to cooking. First, you have to inspect the apples. Turn them round and round, searching for any hint of pie unworthiness. Then, they needed to be peeled and cored. Then the apples had to be sliced into perfect half moons no more than ¼ inch thick. Sugar and spices were added. My grandmother was a big fan of nutmeg and believed that if you carried a whole nutmeg in your pocket, you would have a lovely life. To this day, I have a nutmeg in my purse, just in case. In case of what I don’t know, but I am ready.
Then the apples were gently simmered and when they were almost fork tender, three tablespoons of that famous apple butter were stirred into the mix to bump up the flavor. The mix had to be absolutely cool before it was ready to become pie and that seemed to take forever.
The crust was not very sweet. Grandma saved her sugar for where it would count the most. I like a crust that’s almost a shortbread cookie, but not Grandma. The double crust was made with lard, of course. It was so flaky and just sturdy enough to cradle all the soft apple goodness. Touch it with your fork and it resisted ever so slightly, like a Victorian heroine against romantic advances from her love interest.
There is one secret about her crust. Just before pouring the cooled, cooked apple mix into it, she would take a couple of tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar and a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch, mix them together, and sprinkle that evenly over the bottom crust. She said she was dusting the crust with love. Actually, it’s a trick to prevent soggy bottom crusts. Try it. You won’t make a fruit pie again without it.
When the pie was baked, it had to cool to no more than room temperature. Grandma died long before Instagram, but every slice of her pie was—had to be—photo worthy. When you sliced it, those apples had better stay in their place and look like a brick wall of fruit. Grandpa’s vanilla ice cream was made with cream still warm from the cow and eggs fresh from the chickens. If immediacy to their source made everything taste better (and it does) then there is no pie better than my Grandma’s and no ice cream better than my Grandpa’s.
Here’s what I believe her recipe is, not because she gave it to me, but from my observations. I have made this successfully, many times. Magic.
Grace’s Pink Lady Apple Pie
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Ingredients
- 3 T. unsalted butter
- 3 ½ to 4 lbs. Pink Lady apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into uniform slices
- ½ t. ground cinnamon
- ½ t. freshly grated nutmeg
- ¼ t. ground allspice
- ¼ t. kosher salt (or as Grandma called it, “big” salt, in comparison to “shaker” salt)
- ½ cup granulated white sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 T. apple cider vinegar
- 3 T. your favorite apple butter
- 3 T. all-purpose flour
- 2 T. cornstarch mixed with 2 T. confectioners’ sugar, mixed thoroughly
- 1 egg, beaten so no parts of the white are visible
- Your favorite double crust pie crust (I won’t tell if it’s store bought.)
Instructions
Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat and add apple slices. Stir gently to coat all apples with butter. Mix together the spices and sugars. Add to pan and stir to coat. Sprinkle the flour over the apples and stir gently. Lastly, take pan off the heat, add the vinegar and apple butter then stir. Allow to cool thoroughly.
Fit your bottom pie dough in your pie pan and chill in fridge. When everything is cool, take your pie pan and sprinkle the bottom crust evenly with the cornstarch/sugar dust. Add the cooked, cooled apple slices, making sure there are no gaps or air pockets, just wall-to-wall apple deliciousness.
Top with the top crust (and Grandma Grace always cut small hearts into the top crust). Brush the top crust with the beaten egg and sprinkle with more sugar if you’d like. Bake at 375 degrees until bubbly and golden brown. About 40 minutes. Check after 30 minutes to be safe. (Temperatures are my best guess, as Grandma cooked with a wood stove.)
Let cool to room temperature so the slices will be perfect wedges of apple love. Top with any spectacular vanilla ice cream. Let the love wash over you and make your world right.
The story above first appeared in our Sept / Oct 2022 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!