Apple Pie With A Walnut Crust (Vegan)

I have made a lot of pies in my lifetime. Before I had a family of my own, for years I used to make 5-10 pies over the holidays and bring them to our local Ronald McDonald House for the families staying there (I don’t even know if they accept homemade food donations like that anymore). So I’ve tried a lot of different recipes and then combined, tweaked, simplified, and vegan-ized this Apple Pie recipe to be what it is today. Our family’s favorite.

Walnut Crust

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 Tbs. sugar
• 8 oz. (16 Tbs.) cold unsalted butter cubed or coconut oil
• 1.5 cup walnuts, very finely chopped
• 8 Tbs. ice water
• 1 Tbs. egg replacer or arrowroot powder

Makes enough dough for 1 double crust pie or 2 single crust pies.

Directions:

Mix all the dry ingredients, except for the chopped walnuts, into a bowl. Pour the dry ingredients into a food processor or blender then add the butter and pulse to mix. Then add the walnuts and water and pulse to combine into a thick dough consistency. You can either roll out the dough into disks or press and form the dough directly into the pie pan. Save the leftover dough for the top of the pie. If you are using a glass or Pyrex pie plate, let the dough rest at room temperature for 1 hour to allow the gluten to settle. If you are using a metal pie pan, you can allow the crust dough to rest in the refrigerator for 1/2 an hour to settle. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake for 20 minutes or until the crust is lightly golden.

Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vegan butter
• 4 Tbs. flour
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 Tbs. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 8 peeled, cored, and sliced apples (or spiralized)

Makes enough filling for 1 pie.

While the crust is baking, peel, core, and slice 8 pie apples (I love Honeycrisp for this recipe). I find that an apple spiralizer makes this job so much faster and easier. Dust the apples with ground cinnamon. Once the crust is done baking, arrange the apples in the crust so that the mound extends well over the height of the crust. The apples will bake down and this will compensate for the shrinkage. To prepare the liquid part of the filling, mix the butter, flour, brown sugar, white sugar, water, and vanilla in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the temperature and allow the mix to simmer until the liquid thickens. Pour the thickened mixture over all of the apples and into the crust, making sure to distribute evenly within the crust. Use the remaining raw crust dough to roll out and cut long strips for the lattice on top of the pie. Put the pie in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes and then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees for an additional 35-45 minutes or until the apples are soft and the lattice is a light golden brown. Let cool before serving.