Recipe and Photography by Lauren Maier

With frosty weather comes everyone’s favorite snowed-in past time: baking. Instead of making customary chocolate chip cookies or buckeye brownies, shake it up and try this weather-appropriate apple pie, to warm up the house on an icy day. It even has snowflakes!

Serves 6-8 slices

Ingredients for the Double Pie Crust

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• ⅔ cup of lard *shortening can be used as an alternative
• 7 tablespoons of cold water

Ingredients for the Apple Filling

• 8 apples
• 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon of cinnamon *More can be used based on preference*
• ⅛ teaspoon of allspice
• ⅛ teaspoon of nutmeg
• ¾ cups of sugar

Mixing bowl and an Electric Mixer are standard for making a pie.

1. To make the double pie crust, add the flour, salt and lard in a mixing bowl. With the electric mixer, incorporate the lard until the lard is in pea sizes.
2. Add water one tablespoon at a time until the six to seven tablespoons of water is used. Split dough into two and put in fridge for at least an hour before working with it again.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
4. Take 6-10 apples and peel them all. Cut the apples into bite-sized pieces and throw them all in a bowl.
5. Add all of the cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and sugar and mix in with the apples. Once all the seasonings and sugar is thoroughly dispersed, add the flour to thicken the “sauce” that forms.
6. Take the pie crust dough out of the fridge. On a flat surface, sprinkle some flour down on the surface to prevent the dough from sticking. Lay the dough down.
7. Take a rolling pin and put flour onto the rolling pin as well. Roll the dough out into a flat circle-like shape about a centimeter thick.
8. Lay the rolled out dough in a pie pan. There is no need to apply non-stick substances onto the pan because the fat in the crust will do the work for you.
9. Once the dough is in the tray, make sure the crust is covering all sides of the pan.
10. Take your filling and pour it in.
11. Take the other ball of crust and roll it out just like in step (6).
12. Take a snowflake cookie cutter and cut the pie into snowflakes and placed them on top of the filing. Do this until the pie is mostly covered.
13. Place pie into oven and bake for at least 30 minutes or until golden brown. After 30 minutes, check apples and see if they are still crunchy. If so, lower the oven temperature to 300 degrees and let the apples cook down.
14. When ready, take pie out and let it cool.
15. Grab a slice and enjoy! Click here for more tasty treats to make.