Home › Pies › Apple Pie (Place upon a pie pan or pie)
Apple Pie (Place upon a pie pan or pie)
Place upon a pie pan or pie plate a piece of flaky pie crust the thickness desired, shaping it carefully to the dish, and cut off around the edges with a sharp knife. Cover the bottom of the crust with a thin layer of sugar, dust with flour; then fill the crust with quarters of pared and cored apples. Dust them lightly with salt, and generously with sugar, especially if they are very tart; roll an upper crust and lay over them, trim around the edges as before, press the upper and lower crusts together lightly and bake half an hour, or until the apples are soft, and the top and bottom crusts are both nicely browned. A little cinnamon or nutmeg may be used if desired.
A plain double-crust apple pie with no measurements at all, which is how most nineteenth-century pie recipes read: the cook was expected to judge quantity by the size of the plate. A few things need translating.
- QuantitiesFor a 9-inch plate, figure 6-7 medium apples (about 2 to 2 1/2 lb before paring) and 3/4 to 1 cup sugar, more for very tart fruit. The flour dusted over the bottom sugar is the thickener; 2 tablespoons total is about right.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no heat because a range cook judged it by hand. Bake at 425F for the first 20 minutes to set and brown the bottom crust, then 375F until the filling bubbles thickly.
- TimingHalf an hour will not cook raw apple quarters through in a modern oven. Expect 50 to 60 minutes, and judge by a skewer sliding easily through the fruit rather than by the clock.
- Quarters, not slicesWhole quarters give a chunky, slightly loose pie. They cook unevenly if the apples are large; halve the quarters lengthwise if the fruit is big, and use an apple that holds its shape, such as Granny Smith or Northern Spy.
- The sugar-and-flour floorThis is the hinge. Sugar and flour laid on the bottom crust before the fruit goes in absorbs the first juices and keeps the base from turning to paste. Do not skip it or scatter it over the top instead.
- Sealing and ventingThe recipe says only to press the upper and lower crusts together lightly, and gives no steam vents. With a deep modern plate, crimp firmly and cut two or three vents, or the top may lift and the juices run out at the rim.
- The saltA light dusting of salt directly on the fruit is not an error. It sharpens the apple flavour and is worth keeping, roughly 1/4 teaspoon for a whole pie.
- YieldOne 9-inch pie, six to eight servings. Cool at least an hour before cutting or the filling will not hold a slice.
Apple pie recipes of this kind appear in nearly every American household book of the late nineteenth century, and their brevity is the point: the compiler assumed the reader already made pastry weekly and needed only the particular arrangement of sugar, flour and fruit. The dry sugar-and-flour layer on the bottom crust turns up repeatedly in period pie recipes as a practical answer to the soggy base. The closing line leaves cinnamon or nutmeg to the cook's taste.