Apple Applesauce Pie, Oh My

The new Winter Harvest will be in stores in a few weeks, which means I'll be doing some promotion, which means it's time to reacquaint myself with some of the recipes I haven't made in awhile, and with the whole idea of following recipes faithfully. Once the manuscript went to the publisher, I mostly went back to my casual approach to measurements and cooking times. That works fine for real life, but less so for food demonstrations when I want to be able to assure people that if they follow the same procedure, they will get similar results. 

So tonight I made an old favorite from the book, Apple Applesauce Pie, and it was reassuringly good. I used Tsugaru apples from Bellewood Acres, the last of last year's applesauce from Sumas apples, Breckenridge Farms milk and butter, an Organic Valley egg, and Grace Harbor Farms Guernsey yogurt, which gets my vote for the world's best. Tsugarus are maybe not the ideal pie apple as they are very crisp and resist softening up much during cooking, but they taste just great. 

Here's the recipe, from the book: 

APPLE APPLESAUCE PIE

One day I set out to make Mrs. Anderson’s Sour Cream Apple Pie (the recipe is in Lila Gault’s Northwest Cookbook and it’s great) and found I didn’t have any sour cream. The following improvisation is a bit easier on the arteries, and it got raves. I hate making pie crust so I use a pat-in-the-pan kuchen pastry whenever possible.

1 3/4 cups unbleached flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon sugar

1/3 cup butter

Sift flour, baking powder, and sugar into a bowl. Add shortening, cut into small pieces, and blend with a fork or your fingers until it resembles coarse cornmeal. Press mixture into a pie pan and bake 10 minutes at 400°F. Remove from oven and cool before filling.

Filling

2 1/2 to 3 cups apples, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened yogurt

1/2 cup applesauce

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place apples in pie shell. Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add yogurt, applesauce, egg, and vanilla and mix well. Pour over apples and bake for about 30 minutes or until mixture has set.

SERVES 6.