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Your pie looks wonderful!
Thanks!
Hi Melissa,
Your recipe notes to preheat the oven to 425, but when it’s time to begin the first part of baking, the recipe says 475. Are we to bump up the temp from 425 to 475 when the pie goes into the oven for the first 15 minutes, or is there an error?
I’m eager to try your recipe this week!
Looks fantastic!
Diana
Thanks for the catch!
That was a typo - just fixed it. 425 F is correct.
Enjoy your pie making 
Melissa, I made this for Thanksgiving and it was the best apple pie I’ve made! I love the caramel method! I used some Hayden Mills Sonoran wheat flour and AP flour, with a 50/50 butter and Crisco crust.
Diana in AZ
I’m so happy to hear it worked out well for you! I made it for Thanksgiving too, and with the 50/50 fat and whole grain ratios as well
Can you blind bake the crust the night before for this pie? I’m needing to make apple and pumpkin pies for a family gathering tomorrow at noon, hoping to fill and bake the pies early in the morning but get a start tonight on the crusts.
You can definitely do that for the pumpkin pie.
The apple, I’m not sure. The apples need a lot of time to cook, so if you blind bake the crust, you probably still don’t want to shorten the overall bake time. Use a pie shield around the edges for sure.
General blind baking instructions, which you probably already know, involve chilling the crust for 30 minutes first and then using pie weights or docking the crust.
Happy Thanksgiving : )
Hi, Melissa,
Thanks for the advice. The pumpkin pie looks really good. The crust came together beautifully. I used the 50% White Sonora and 50% all purpose flour option, and half butter half lard that I rendered myself from some really good pork.
Can’t seem to upload a nice pic of the pie… I’ll try again with a shot of the apple pie when it’s ready.
Apple pie next! And Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope both pies turned out well. That’s cool you rendered the lard yourself!
They wouldn’t win a beauty prize, but they both tasted fabulous, and the crust’s flavor and texture were extraordinary. Thanks, Melissa!
Pie prep! I did a bunch of reading and learned that fruit pies are great to freeze ahead unbaked and if you pre-cook the filling you should substitute cornstarch for a different thickener. Apparently cornstarch loses water when defrosting in the oven. I used the recipe above with tapioca starch/flour instead of cornstarch since the goo does get cooked. Here’s the freezing info article:
It says that the crust of a frozen pie is less likely to shrink inward also.
This year I used Breadtopia’s high extraction all-purpose flour aka sifted hard red winter wheat flour.
Here’s my crust
