Mother’s Day is always so special, a perfect time to reflect on all our hardships and accomplishments in the realm of motherhood.  A time to be grateful for all of the mother’s in your life – I have four mothers and two grandmothers, so I am quite lucky in that department.  I feel very blessed to have all of their wisdom and fun, quirky personalities shaping mine and my child’s.  And my very own mother (the one that actually made me) and I talk everyday so I am fortunate to say I have a very close connection with her.  She guides me, challenges me, and makes me laugh and I think I do the same for her!

Today I looked at my huge bag of apples and thought it’s time to bake!  We are celebrating a family graduate this week (so a good pie and some vanilla ice cream could come in handy) and it’s Mother’s Day, so it’s a good time to do something special together.  I got out my family recipes and turned to Grammy Shaw’s Apple Crumb Pie.  I’ve made it with my own mother and grammy Shaw before, but never with Willow.  I doubled it to make sure we really got to experience this yummy pie.

Firstly, we needed to make the pie crust from Scratch!

The Pie Crust:

• 6 Tbs. butter – cut into small pieces
• 1 1/2 C flour
• 4 Tbsp. cold water

Place the butter cubes and flour in a bowl and pinch the butter in the flour until it turns into crumbs.  Do this until is all feels like cornmeal.  Once there are no lumps add 4 Tbsp. of cold water or just enough to make one big ball of dough.  It’s ready to roll out.

Roll it out on a lightly floured baking mat.  This is my daughter’s favorite part so I let her roll for as long as she wants.  She also loves to make the actual crust by pinching the butter so get your little one in there.  Roll it quite thin like 1/4″  thin.  Not so thin that you can see right through it though.  Remember to patch up areas by adding a little bit of cold water and mushing it back into the main crust.  Roll over those areas, make them flat and this will fix cracks easily.

Grease your pie pans with a spray.  I got a nice coconut oil spray.  Lay the dough down and press firmly into the pan.  Let it hang over the edge quite a bit.  This was fun because I could cut the dough with the kitchen sheers and that was actually really satisfying.  This has been a new goal of mine, to learn to perfect the actual pastry aspects in baking.  I folded the extra under, rolled it rather before pinching it.

Here’s a video I watched to teach me how to make the flutes around the edges.  It was so helpful!

I made the flutes all around it and had Willow pierce it with a fork on the bottom and sides.  Then we refrigerated it for 1 hour.  This was one of those moments when she had a huge silver fork and was going to town that I realized how much she’s grown and then I was noticing that she was doing everything.  She kept remarking about how much she enjoyed doing it too.  I said “you could be a pastry chef then and do this all day long”.  For a second I was wishing I had done the same thing with my life because I enjoy it as much as she does.

 

Grammy Shaw’s Apple Crumb Pie Recipe:

Mix 1:

• 1/2 C sugar (natural cane sugar)
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix together well and then coat prepped apple in a large bowl

Mix 2:  Crumb topping

• 1/2 C
• 3/4 C flour
• 1/3 C butter

Mix together and pinch the butter in the flour to make it a crumble.  Keep doing this until it feels like course cornmeal.

Now for prepping the apples and making the mix.

First peel your apples and core them and slice them thinly.  In a separate smaller bowl combine mix 1 ingredients.  Mix up all of your apples with this sugar mix and coat them really well until all are slightly brown from cinnamon.  Great for little hands and fun too with the strong cinnamon smell.

Next make mix 2 combining everything and making the whole mixture crumbly just like the pie crust experience.  Make sure there are no lumps and it is like course cornmeal.

Pull your crusts out of the refrigerator and set them on the counter.  Fan your apples in circles around the whole pie crust and do a double layer.  Place them in a fan shape in the center circle as well.  Use all of your apples, no gaps or holes.

Once the fanning of the apples happens and the whole pie crust is full, then add the crumb topping.  Sprinkle it into the pie evenly and making sure to cover every nook and cranny.  Use every last crumb!

They are ready for the oven. Bake until nice and golden!  I always set my timer five minutes before the recipe time.  I turn the light on and sort of inspect everything.  I have burned too many things and been devastated after all the effort.  I think my oven is running a little hot and it’s better to just check on things before it’s too late.

Bake:

• 450 degrees X 10 min.
• 350 degrees X 40 min.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!! 

Thank you Grammy or Yaya (Willow and the Maine crew call her Yaya) for this lovely recipe and for making it all these years.  We will be visiting her in Maine this summer; Willow will meet her great grandmother (what an incredible blessing) and maybe we’ll make another family recipe to remember!

Cherish your children and your families and take some time for yourself on Sunday.  We are having a little breakfast out and some family time so it should be a sweet day.  Let me know how the pies come out and don’t forget your vanilla ice cream to finish them off.  Bon appetit!