Apple orchards and hay rides
Hot cider donuts
Fresh cranberries from the farm market
Scooped from wild bogs
Playing catch with green apples
Cottages in the dark
Roast chicken and potatoes
Scrabble and card games
Ghost stories and dares
Donning sweatshirts
Feeling dark nights, cool stars
The scent of wood smoke
Soccer in a damp field
Lit by moon halos
In the morning, pie for breakfast
Driving to a mountain field
Gray mist, fog lifting
Every color leaf lit from above
Fresh pine and fir trees
Flavors of the northeast.
- Paleo/AIP Pie Crust (makes 2 crusts)
- 2 c cassava flour
- ¾ c tigernut flour
- ¾ tsp sea salt
- 1 c coconut oil, chilled (or cold leaf lard, non-V)
- ½ c ice-cold water, added in tablespoons
- Filling
- ~3 pounds apples (~7 large apples, I used Granny Smith)
- 1 12 oz (340g) bag of cranberries (or around 1-1.5 cups)
- 2 tb tapioca flour or arrowroot starch (you could decrease this if you like a more liquid-y filling)
- 6 tb honey or maple syrup (or mix of both; adjust sweetener to taste)
- 1 tb ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg (optional, non-AIP)
- ½ tsp ground ginger or 1 tsp fresh ginger
- 2 tsps lime/lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
- zest of 1 lemon (optional)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 3 tb coconut oil or ghee/grassfed butter (non-AIP/V)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional, non-AIP)
- 1 egg (non-AIP) or 2 tb coconut milk for wash (optional)
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- For crust: mix flours and salt, and then cut in cold fat with a pastry cutter.
- Add water a tablespoon at a time until the mixture adheres and can be shaped into a ball. Separate into two, flatten into discs, cover in wrap and refrigerate while you prepare the filling.
- For filling: peel, core, and slice apples (~1/4 in. thickness).
- If using granny smith, pre-cook for ~10 minutes over stovetop in 3 tb coconut oil, until apples have softened. Add cranberries and other filling ingredients. Let cool/stick mixture in fridge.
- Roll out first pie dough between two pieces of (tapioca) floured parchment paper (~1/4 in. thickness). Remove the top piece of parchment and turn the dough into a pie plate (if it falls apart during this stage, that's okay, just patch it up with extra dough). Trim the edges with a knife.
- Pour cooled filling into the bottom crust.
- To prepare the lattice, roll out second dough disk the same way as the first. Cut strips (~3/4 in. wide) with a knife, pie cutter, or ravioli cutter (for fluted edges). Lay 5 strips across the pie and fold back the 2nd and 4th. Lay one strip perpendicular to those, and fold the 5 strips back over. Now fold back the 1st, 3rd, and 5th strips and repeat. Okay this is too complicated to dictate, here watch this handy youtube video. (Latticing is fun/easy, and totally satisfying once it comes together. Just make sure your dough is chilled enough so that it doesn't melt while you're trying to work with it.)
- Crimp edges if desired (another handy video), and brush top of pie with wash.
- Bake for 45 minutes or so, until crust is brown and fruit is bubbling.
A couple rare process photos
Cranberries ❤
And dough latticing. This may have been my second try eh-hem (totally overestimated my spatial construction abilities/did not watch the youtube video first)
Pie in its natural habitat (i.e. the great outdoors / my tummy. Either/or).
Pie, cold, next day
Pie, warmed up
Nom. Enjoy!
This post has been shared on Phoenix Helix’s Paleo-AIP Roundtable.
I have to ask! Did you use the “chilled coconut oil” or the “leaf lard” for this pie? I want to be able to emulate this perfectly flakey looking crust!!!
Leaf lard! I always go with cold leaf lard for ultimate flakiness, but coconut oil doesn’t do too badly either. Good luck!
Thank you so much! I can’t wait to try!
This pie just looks amazing! Could you substitute the coconut oil in the crust for palm shortening? I’m always a bit scared of the texture being too “oily”. This happened with a few AIP crumbles I made in the past and it makes me a bit nauseous :).
Sure, palm shortening would probably work! I also sub lard for more flakiness.
How on earth do you get your GF pie crust lattice like that? I’ve tried chilled dough, warm dough, and it always breaks. The only time I had minor success was adding a lot more water to the dough.