Easy as Pie Homemade Pie Dough Recipe

Today’s pie bake is adapted from my newly bought, The Amish Cook’s Family Favorite Recipes Cookbook by Lovina Eicher that I recently purchased from Amazon.com. This is one of the many wonderful books published by Rodale Publishing.

I plan to make many great from scratch meals from my new cookbook.

I recently received a mail offer from Rodale Publishing to buy this book on time by making payments and my interest was piqued. The total cost of the hardcover book, with 4 monthly payments and the shipping and handling was over $40.00. I wanted this cookbook but I did not want to make payments and quite honestly I do not buy books that cost that much. Instead I searched for it on Amazon and found a used book being sold by a library. I paid just $6.95 for it and that includes book rate shipping. Oh happy day!

This book intrigued me due to its wonderful collection of traditional home-style Amish recipes, photographs and lifestyle tips shared by its Amish born author and writer. I find a lot of my recipes on-line, but of course due to their religious practices, I do not see many authentic Amish recipes shared on-line.

Like its name, Pat a Pan Pie crust is patted in the plate using your fingers.

Today I decided to try my hand at what the cookbook calls “Pat a Pan Pie Crust.” I have never been a pie maker (my mother worked full-time and did not cook or bake) I tend to make a fruit crisp if I am baking a dessert.

My husband absolutely loves a fruit pie but I have been lone nervous about making a pie crust and pie from scratch. I generally do not make many sweets as we are trying to cut back on our sugar intake but I wanted to make this pie for him as a special treat for our 18th anniversary.

It’s so easy. Just mix the flour, olive oil etc. right in the pie pan.

Finally I decide my fears were just plain silly as no one taught me to cook or bake (I figured it out by myself) and if I could make delicious holiday fruitcake and stolen from scratch, I could certainly make a tasty pie.

So I tried this recipe and it was, as I mentioned above, as easy to make as pie! LOL! My photographs are definitely not magazine worthy, but you get the idea.

This is what is look like as I stirred the crust with the fork.

The recipe is called Pat a Pan Pie Crust and according to Amish cookbook it is easy enough for a child to make. This is the one for me!

The crust and filling ready to go into the oven.

I adapted the original recipe slightly using tapioca to hold it together. In my one fruit pie experiment many years back I used tapioca with a health food store-bought whole wheat crust and it was delicious. I especially liked that it was not overly sweet either. The filling is held together by the Tapioca so I can add much less sugar than a conventional pie and I do not have to make a sugar and cornstarch batter-type filling.

I know this is one tiny ingredient that is not from scratch.

Pat-A-Pan Pie Crust:

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup olive oil

3 tablespoons cold milk

Place the flour, sugar and salt in a 9″pie pan and mix with you fingers until evenly blended. In a measuring cup, combine the oil and the milk and beat until creamy. Pour all at once over the flour mixture. Mix with a fork until the flour mixture is completely moistened. Pat the dough  with you fingers, first at the sides of the plate and then across the bottom. Flute the edges.

The shell is now ready to be filled. If you are preparing a shell to fill later or your recipe requires a prebaked crust, preheat the oven to 425 F. Prick the surface of the pastry with a fork and bake until golden brown. Check often and prick more if needed.

The Apple Filling:

Core, peel and simmer your apples on the stove top with ¼ cup water, for about 10 minutes over low heat. To assemble your filling add:

The Tapioca and Fruit Mix:

Using 6 cups of slightly cook apple slices, add 2 TB of tapioca granules and 1/2 cup of coconut sugar. Mix well.  Fill the pie shell.

Cook the filled pie shell, 25-35 minutes at 450 degrees or until done. If the crust starts to brown to fast but the apples are not fully cooked, wrap the edges of the crust in foil.

Serve warm. I was very happy with my experiment and thought it was delicious.

Small House homesteader, Donna