Apple Pie-making Tips
Yield: a delicious apple pie

•If you’d like homemade pie, but are anxious about making pastry buy pre-made pie crusts. You’ll get good results with less mess and fuss.

•To brown the top crust on an apple pie brush lightly with milk or beaten egg before baking. Sprinkling the liquid dampened crust with granulated or turbinado sugar will add a bit of sweetness and even more colour.

•Always cut a few small vents in the top crust of a fruit pie to allow the steam from the cooking fruit to escape. The vents can be fancy shapes or plain slits.

•To seal the top and bottom crusts well, dampen the rim of the bottom crust with water before adding the top crust and crimping the two together.

•When making apple pie from juicy apples such as McIntosh or Gravenstein you will need to include something to thicken the apple juices. Cornstarch, flour or tapioca will all work well and give slightly different results. Even with the addition of a thickener you may need to watch for boil over.

•If the apples you have on hand to make a pie with are quite ripe or a sweet variety, they may be lacking enough acidity for a great pie. Just add a tablespoon or so of lemon juice.

•Depending on your personal tastes you may wish to ‘spice up’ your apple pie. Popular spices used in apple pie include: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and mace. It’s easy to add too much of any of these, especially cloves and mace.

•Sweeten apple pie based on the tartness of the apples being used. Apples known as ‘cooking apples’ are generally more tart than those we think of as fresh eating apples.

•Fresh apple pie is lovely served with cheese, ice cream, cream, a drizzle of butterscotch sauce or on it’s own.

•If you’re trying to duplicate Gramma’s pie and not having any luck perhaps part of the problem is the variety of apple you’re using. Some varieties ‘cook down’ resulting in a pie without distinct apple slices. Other varieties retain their shape well and result in a pie with chunky apple pieces. In our Uses for N. S. Apples chart, apples that are excellent for pies will yield pies with chunky slices, apples that are excellent for sauce will make pies where the apples slices are softer and less distinct.

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