Deep Dish Apple Pie with Butter-Lard Crust

The bf convinced me to get a pie dish the last time we were at the Le Creuset store. It is a DEEP dish pie dish so it holds a lot of apples. Today when he came home, he asked me to make apple pie. I told him I couldn’t remember the last time I made pie but I will give it a try. I think I pied myself out the year I made nine apple pies for Thanksiving.

Filling:
4 pounds baking apples, peeled, cored and sliced (I don’t like straight granny smiths so I used a mix of pink lady and gala apples)
2 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon ground Saigon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¾ cups sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Crust:
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons sugar
¾ cups unsalted butter, very cold and cut into large chunks
¾ cups lard, very cold and cut into large chunks
ice cold water (as needed)

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade, add flour, salt and sugar. Mix well. Add butter and lard. Pulse until coarse. (You can also cut the fat with the flour using two knives or a pastry cutter. I learned to make pie crust using the two knives method.)

2. Add water a tablespoon at a time until dough forms. Divide dough into two balls, with one ball slightly larger than the other. Flatten the dough into approximately 5-inch disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cold.

3. Meanwhile, combine the ingredients for the filling.

4. Roll out the larger of the two disk for the bottom crust and fit into pie dish. Pile the apples into the dish. Roll out the smaller disk for the the top crust. Trim and flute edges.

5. Bake in 425 degree oven for 15 minutes. Lower heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 45 minutes. Cool on rack (or trivet) before slicing.

Roll out the crust into a circle about 2 to 3 inches larger than your pie dish. I won't go over the the technique for rolling out pie crust but basically you roll from the center towards the edges. I see too many people roll the crust back and forth. Use a bench scraper to help you get the crust off your work surface and wrap the crust around the rolling pin for easy transporting.

Wrap it around the rolling pin and carry it to your pie dish.
Carefully fit the crust into the pie plate.
Trim the crust.
Fill with apples.
Roll out the top crust, wrap around the rolling pin and place on top. Trim edges about an inch or so around the dish and tuck the edges of the top crust under the bottom crust.
Flute the edges. (It was a little difficult for me because of my nails.)

Bake in 425 degree oven for 15 minutes and then for an additional 45 minutes at 350 degrees.