I’ve never made a pie before!

Crazy, eh!

Yeah, I think so too!

As the Canadian Thanksgiving was fast approaching a few weeks back on October 8th, I knew I had to make an attempt at making a pie. Let’s rephrase that – I had to attempt to make a VEGAN pie!

My husband and I sat down and looked through one of our cookbooks: “How It All Vegan!” by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. “Amazing Apple Pie” and “Perfect Pumpkin Pie” seemed like the perfect fit for our family dinner that was coming up. The only problem was that I’ve never made a pie or pie crust…and it had to be vegan or my husband couldn’t eat it.

My first thought was, okay let’s make two pies! One as a trial run and the other for our family dinner. If I screwed it up the first time, I had at least a week to pull it all together.

Amazing Apple Pie was the first pie to make.

Amazing Apple Pie

Ingredients:

6 – 8 large baking apples (Granny Smith are best) cored and sliced

1/2 cup raisins (optional)

3/4 maple syrup

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp cinnamon

2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot powder

1 pie crust (See end of post)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
• Core and slice apples into bite-sized pieces.
• Bring a medium pot of water to boil, then reduce heat to medium and add the apples and optional raisins to simmer for 8-10 minutes.
• Save 1/4 cup of “apple water” for use later (We actually drank the rest as our “fancy hot drink” on our Fall Bucket List.
• Drain apples and place in a large bowl.
• Mix carefully together the cooked apples, maple syrup, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Set aside.
• In a small saucepan, mix the 1/4 cup “apple water” with the cornstarch over medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture turns very thick.
• Add the cornstarch mixture to the rest of the ingredients, stirring until mixed well.
• Pour into a pie crust and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Pie Crust: (Similar to Cristco pie crust – one serving)

• 1 cup and 1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 stick of shortening (I use Earth Balance as it’s vegan)
• 3-6 tbsp of ice-cold water

Directions:

• Mix flour and salt together.
• Cut up shortening and mix into flour.
• Add water by the tbsp.
• Put in fridge for 30 minutes to chill (or freezer for 10 minutes)
• Roll into pie crust

 

Everyone loved it…even our toddler who never had a piece of pie before!

And it didn’t last too long in our house 🙂

What’s your favourite pie to make?

Any secret tips to pass along to newbies like me?