The following ingredients are designed to make the basic crust and filling for one pie in a 9 inch pie plate.

Ingredients:

8-9 medium apples, or about 4 pounds.
All purpose flour. 2 1/4 cups. (Some extra for rolling out pastry, and 2-3 tablespoon's worth for the apple filling.) Avoid self-rising flour.
Unsalted butter 10 tablespoons (cold)
5 tablespoons of shortening, such as Crisco - regular or butter flavored.
Cold Water 8-10 tablespoons
One egg
1/2 teaspoon of salt (for crust)
1/2 - 1 cup granulated sugar for the apple filling, and 1 tablespoon of sugar for the crust.
1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

Perfect Pie Crust

1. Into a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, 1 tablespoon of sugar and the 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

2. Cut the cold butter and shortening into half inch pieces, such as shown here, and transfer to the dry mix bowl.

3. The process of "cutting in" the butter/shortening. This should be done with some care, using the pastry blender or a pair of table knives. Don't make the pieces too small. They should be lumpy, the size of a large pea, before adding liquid.

4. Chill the mixing bowl and its dry contents in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.

5. Adding the liquid: In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and water. Now sprinkle 3 tablespoons of this liquid over the dry mix (that you have removed from the cooler!). Stir this in with a wooden spoon.

6. Adding more liquid: One tablespoon at a time, add more of the water/egg mixture in to bowl. Stir it in. Do this until the dough begins to clump together. You should be able to form a ball that stays together, but it should not be "wet".

7. Make a ball with all the dough. Cut it in half. Flatten each of the two halves into a disc shape (about 1 inch thick) and wrap separately in plastic or wax paper, shown below. Put these in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes.

8. Congratulations! You are done with making the dough! While you are waiting for it to chill, make your apple filling.

Cinnamon Apple Filling

1. Peel the apples. (You probably want to wash and drain them first.) Some people like to use a mechanical peeler because it speeds up the process and it's fun. But a hand peeler or paring knife works ok too.

2. Core and slice the peeled apples. Here we are using a clever device called an apple divider to quickly core and divide the peeled apples. The eight slices are then cut by hand with a paring knife to the appropriate size. It's a fast process.

3. The size of the cut apples . . . It's pretty simple, but there are a couple things to consider. First, you don't want to slice apples too thin, such as in a food processor, otherwise your pie will be mush. If they are too large, the apples won't cook properly and could even be crunchy. About 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick is probably good. Really hard apples should be cut thinner. The peeler and paring knife here are used to show scale.

4. In a medium or large mixing bowl, mix the apples with the 1 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and 1/2 tsp cinnamon until apples are well coated. (It's perfectly appropriate here to steal a slice and eat it!) That's it for the filling. You're done!

Putting it all together

1. Dust the entire pie mat with an even, thin layer of flour. Same for the rolling pin.

2. Retrieve one of the dough "discs" from the refrigerator. Place it in the center of the mat and roll out the dough, from the center outward, keeping it in a circular shape.

3. Gently pick up the dough, turn it over and continue rolling. Do this several times as the dough becomes thinner, covering more of the pie mat. Use more flour as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking to the mat or rolling pin.

4. The diamater of the dough should be an inch larger than the pie plate you plan to use - a bit more if the plate is deep. It should be about 1/8 inch thick.

5. Transfer the dough to the pie plate. This can be done a couple of ways. One is to fold the dough in half, then lift it up and place it across the pie plate center, and unfold. The other is to roll the dough around your pin and un-roll over the plate as shown here.

6. With your fingers, gently press the dough into the bottom of the pie plate and trim the edge of the dough with a knife, leaving about 1/2 an inch over the rim of the plate.

7. Spoon the cinnamon apple mixture into the pie plate. Use your hand or spoon to pack the apples in. The apples should form a mound, at least 1/2 higher than the edge of the plate. The apples will cook down.

8. Time for the top crust! Get the other dough disc out of the refrigerator and repeat steps 1-4. The top should be the same size and thickness as the bottom. Before you put it on top of the pie do step 9.

9. You should still have the remains of the egg/water mixture somwhere. If not whisk up some more. Use the pastry brush to apply a layer of moisture to the edge of the pastry crust in the pie plate. This provides a better edge seal with the top. (See 11, below.)

10. In the same manner as before, transfer the top dough to the pie, and trim the excess dough around the edges, leaving about 1/2 an inch. If there are gaps or cracks in either the top or bottom crust, you can use the excess dough to patch it up. Here we are using the fold-unfold method to transfer the dough.

11. Join the top and bottom crust edges by pressing them together with your fingers and roll it under, against the top edge of the pie plate. Crimp the edge, making a wavy pattern. It looks good and helps keep the juices in.

12. Cut small slits into the top, or poke small holes with a fork to allow the steam to escape. (Another chance to be creative!)

13. STOP! Important! At this point place the entire pie in the refrigerator. That's right, not the oven. Cool it there for 10 - 15 minutes. Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees. We recommend chilling the pie before putting it in the oven so that the butter and shortening are chilled when entering the hot oven. The colder the butter and shortening are when the pie is baked will produce a flakier pie crust.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR CERAMIC PIE PLATES:
If you are using a ceramic pie plate, DO NOT follow this step. Going from the refrigerator to the oven may cause a ceramic pie plate to crack. In addition, some ceramic pie plates cannot withstand a baking temperature of more than 350 degrees. Check the manufactures recommendation.

14. Final step! Remove the chilled pie from the refrigerator and use the pastry brush to completely coat the top with the last of the egg/water mixture. Sprinkle the top with granulated sugar.

15. Into the oven! Bake at 425 degrees f for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 400 and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes for a total of 40-45 minutes. For pie plates that cannot withstand a temperature of 425 degrees, preheat the oven to 400 degrees and reduce the heat to 375 to complete the baking process.