I l.o.v.e. to bake. Love, love, love it. But I had far too many pie fails in my time, and I’d kind of given up on them. Then last year, I found an “award-winning” apple pie recipe on Yahoo. They did a video on it, and the dang lady made making a pie look deceptively easy. So easy, in fact, that I doubted myself even more – could I have been THAT BAD at making pies?

Amazing Old Fashioned Apple Pie Recipe

I think that perhaps I didn’t have the right recipe, because, this? This pie is To. Die. For. Delicious. Perfectly simple ingredients. No fancy pie crust finagling. If you mess it up and the crust sticks to your counter top, it will still be delicious (I know – I tried!).

So if you’ve ever given up on pie making, do yourself a favor and try this recipe before you give up for good. It has become my go-to dessert for nearly every occasion – and since last year, I’ve made it so many times that I know it by heart.

(Oh, and by the way – leftover apple pie the next morning is now my breakfast of choice. Although I don’t think my thighs are happy with that choice. Shhhh…)

Adapted from Grandma Brunet’s Blue Ribbon Apple Pie Recipe

FYI – the order I do this: 1) I make the pie crust, 2) roll out the bottom dough, 3) cut and peel the apples, 4) fill the pie crust, 5) then roll out the top dough. That way the apples don’t get brown before you get them into your pie.

For the Pie Crust

2 cups flour, plus more for rolling dough
1 teaspoon table salt
1 cup shortening (Crisco really does work the best for me)
1/4 cup cold water (I use tap water then add an ice cube to it until it melts)

Mix the flour, salt and shortening together in a medium bowl with a pastry cutter, until all the flour and shortening are combined. Add the water and use your hands to pull the dough together into a ball. According to the original recipe video, her crust looks pretty dry. I’ve had more luck making sure that I’ve used enough water to create two 5 inch flat disks that looks like this (with as few cracks/wrinkles as possible). If it is too crumbly, it will be more difficult to transfer it to your pie pan.

Rolling Homemade Pie Crust Dough

Roll out the first disk on a heavily floured surface with a well-floured rolling pin. Don’t hesitate to add more flour along the way if things get sticky. Once your crust is about 4-5″ bigger than your pie dish, roll it onto the rolling pin and unroll it off onto your dish (see the video above if this seems tricky for you):

Transferring the Rolled Pie Crust into the Dish

For the Apple Pie Filling

5 large or 6-7 medium apples, peeled, cored, and sliced 1/8″ thick.
Grandma Brunet suggested Cortland or Empire – I’ve actually had the best luck with Honeycrisp apples (the worst apple I’ve used is Granny Smith – it turned to mush). Galas or Fujis are an OK replacement if you can’t find any of these.
¾ cup sugar
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon (I like to be generous with my spices, you may want to use less. Adding some cloves, nutmeg, cardamom or allspice also works well here)
2 tablespoons flour

Mix the sugar with the flour and spices in a bowl.

Spoon a 1-2 tablespoons of the mixture onto the bottom of the pie crust in your dish. Add a layer of sliced apples until you can’t see the bottom anymore. Then sprinkle another 1-2 tablespoons of the sugar mixture over this layer.

I use a very deep pie dish, so I probably do this 3-4 times. You may do it less if you are using a standard depth pie dish.

Heap enough apples into the pie that you simply can’t add anymore without them starting to fall out. 🙂

Making an Apple Pie with Cinnamon Sugar

Top the apples with one more layer of the sugar mixture. (You should make sure you keep at least 2 tablespoons of the sugar mixture for the top of the pie. Don’t skip this, because as my husband said when I forgot this step, “But that’s the best part of the pie!”)

Assemble the Rest of the Pie

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Roll out your top crust with the second half of the pie dough. It doesn’t need to be quite as large as the first one. Roll it out the same way, and roll it onto your rolling pin to transfer it to the top of your pie. I like to think I am perfectionistic about this step, always wanting to get the crust perfectly on top with no cracks. But the truth of the matter is that after it is cooked, some cracks will probably appear anyway, so don’t worry about them. And like I said earlier, if the dough sticks and you have to simply lay it in pieces on top of your apples, the pie still totally works.

Homemade Double Crust Apple Pie - Ready for the Oven

You can pinch the top crust together with the bottom crust around the edges with your fingers, or use a fork like I did above. Sprinkle the last bit of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the top and pop that beauty into the oven. Cook for 20 minutes then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and cook for another 30-35 minutes.

After the pie has cooled enough to eat it, take a bite, and sit back and wait for the accolades to come rushing in.

I told you this pie was that good. 🙂

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