Kymberly Redmonds Apple Pie

 I'm normally not one for social media, my humble blog is about as much publicity that I can muster, and despite the buzz of twitter and facebook I find myself lazily retreating away back into my lovely little kitchen..... there is one exception of course, I have become in instagram addict, purely because I get so much inspiration from fellow bloggers and foodies, this is why I loving living in a day and age when amazing recipes are so very accessible, you do not have to have a television show or a cook book to share an amazing recipe with the world. I Stumbled across a food blogger called "my mommas hands" ,this is a pretty amazing blog run by a very clever Canadian cook called Kymberly Redmond, wow that was a tongue twister!! Her style of food and ethos is very similar to mine, she too is willing to go to the ends of the earth to produce great food, even if the process takes days to get there, authenticity and patience is the key. I did find one particular recipe that stood out to me, she blogs about her old fashioned deep dish apple pie, those of you that regularly read my blog will know about my husbands affinity with apples, I thought that would be a good starting point. I have made many many apple pies before but this recipe was very different, I have been used to the English understated version, very simple and straight forward, a moderate amount of apples and a butter crust, I have also made a few experimental pies that where clearly no good as they have never made it onto the blog, but this apple pie is just perfection, the quintessential picture book apple pie. What is so different about this pie? the crust is made with vegetable shortening which produces an insanely crisp crust, there is tree's worth of apples in the pie, and the spicing is really key, Kymberly States that she likes her pie really cinnamony and gives you permission to use less if you desire, but I'm saying you can't use less, use the amount stated because she is spot on, any less and it would be pointless. I have converted the crust ingredients to grams for all you Brits and Kymberly states to use ginger crisp apples or Granny smith, I could not find ginger crisp apple over here so I have gone with the granny smiths. This is an amazing pie recipe and I'm really very excited to share it with you all because I know that from now on it will be the go to apple pie recipe. Well done Kymberly.

www.mymommashands.com

Old Fashioned Deep Dish Apple Pie (Filling)

• 5 1/2 pounds of Granny smith appled, peeled cored and sliced into half inch slices
• 1 large lemon juiced
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 3 tbsp of flour
• 1 tbsp of ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp of ginger powder
• 1/4 tsp of freshly grated nutmeg
• 3 tbsp of butter cut into small pieces

Mix together all of the filling ingredients together in a bowl ready to fill the pie crust, make sure the spices and flour are evenly distributed amongst the apples.

For the crust:

• 600g of plain flour 
• 265g of trex vegetable shortening
• 3 tbsp of sugar
• 2 tsp of salt
• 1 egg
• 100ml of cold water

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees c.

Grease a very large pie dish, roughly 30cm, with trex.

Place the flour, sugar, salt and trex into a bowl and using a pastry cutter cut the shortening together until it is the size of small peas, this can also be done in the food processor on pulse. Add the egg and the cold water and mix until it starts to come together, do not overwork the dough as it will become tough.

Roll out half of the dough until 1/8 inch thick to form the base, making sure it overlaps the edge of the pie dish by at least an inch, this is to allow you to crimp the edges of the pie crust.

Fill the pie dish with the filling and then brush a little egg wash around the rim of the pastry bottom so that when you place the lid onto the pie it will nip together. Roll out the other half of the pastry to 1/8 inch thick and allow for at least an inch overlap all the way around. 

Press the edges together and trim the excess pastry, you can nip the edges of the pastry together using a fork or a traditional crimping method, decorate the pie with any excess pastry before egg washing with egg whites, sprinkle the top with a little coarse sugar for crunch and texture, cut a few holes in the top of the pie to let the steam out.

Bake in the oven for 50-60 minutes until the sugar begins to bubble out of the top of the pie crust.