Recipe
Grandma Ople's apple pie
The famous one — a buttery brown-sugar sauce poured straight over the lattice before it bakes.
Yield One 9-inch pie
Prep 30 min
Cook 60 min
Flow of operations
113 g (½ cup) unsalted butter
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
60 ml (¼ cup) water
100 g (½ cup) white sugar
110 g (½ cup) packed brown sugar
8 Granny Smith apples — peeled, cored, sliced
Pastry for a 9-inch double crust
melt
stir to a smooth paste
boil, then simmer 3 min
fill bottom crust · weave lattice
pour sauce slowly over the lattice
bake 220 °C / 425 °F · 15 min, then 175 °C / 350 °F · 35–45 min
Method
- Make the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the flour until it forms a smooth paste. Add the water and both sugars, bring it to a boil, then drop to a simmer for about three minutes. Take it off the heat — it should look like thin caramel.
- Build the pie. Line a 9-inch pie plate with the bottom crust and mound in the apple slices — higher in the middle than seems reasonable; they collapse. Weave the top crust into a lattice. The lattice is not optional: the sauce needs gaps to seep through.
- Pour. Slowly spoon the sauce over the whole lattice, letting it run into the openings. Leave a little back if it threatens to overflow. Some on the crust itself is the point — that's what candies.
- Bake at 220 °C / 425 °F for 15 minutes, then reduce to 175 °C / 350 °F for another 35–45 minutes, until the apples are tender and the top is deep amber. Shield the edges with foil if they brown too fast.
- Wait. At least two hours, or the filling pours instead of slices.