I have been making the apple pie for Thanksgiving since 2000 when my mom noticed an opportunity to pass it off because I now had a place of my own and more importantly and oven!

Ar first this ceremonious “passing of the pie” recipe sounded fun, if not flattering- until my mom told me she never REALLY had a recipe and made her crust with a combination of the Fannie Farmer Pate Brisse crust and a Julia Child one.

The first year I got nothing but rave reviews.  I followed the recipe exactly (even though it took me forever!)  The following year though fell flat for me.  Don’t get me wrong everyone was very polite and still ate and raved about my pie but for me… it was not up to par with that first pie.

This year however I changed three variables in my pie making recipe.

1)  I did not use Granny Smith apples as we had a ton of Mitsu Apples from the end of our farm share and I was told they make good cooking apples.

2)  After trying out a paleo/primal crust and determining it would not be nearly as pliable as a regular crust I decided to eliminate the vegetable shortening and use straight butter.  Two sticks in all- sorry folks!

3)  This was the first year (since the first pie) that I was using a gas oven.

Mostly because of the last variable I watched the pie closely and turned it based on eye sight not the recipe.  And as you can see above it came out darn close to perfect!