Apple Pie Filling

Mid-September, the foliage beginning its slow build. A good year so far — the temperature differential has been right, cold nights and warm days, which produces the best color. The maple grove above the farm has gone from green to the first suggestions of red, a change you have to watch for to see, that you can't not see once you've spotted it.

Harvested the winter squash and brought it into the cellar. The potato harvest was good this year — the expanded bed yielding well. The root cellar filling with the fall's provision. This work — the harvest work, the putting away — is work I find increasingly satisfying as I get older. You're doing something in September for the person you'll be in February, and the February person will be grateful. That relationship with your future self, mediated by food, seems to me worth taking seriously.

Carol's garden has produced beyond her expectations this first full year. She called to say she had more butternut squash than she knew what to do with. I said: make soup and freeze it. She said: I already did. I said: make more and give it away. She said: I already did that too. She's going to be a good gardener. She has the right instincts and she doesn't panic when the garden produces faster than she can use it.

Made a proper apple pie this week from the Macs — the first of fall, the ceremony. Helen's crust. The kitchen smelled of cinnamon and apples for two days. That smell is September to me, the specific September of thirty-eight years on this farm. Some associations accumulate weight over time and become the thing they're associated with. The smell of apple pie is September and September is apple pie and I'm no longer sure which came first.

Helen’s crust I’ve written down elsewhere, but the filling is the thing that matters most — get it right and the kitchen holds that cinnamon-and-apple smell for days. This is the filling I made this week from the first Macs, the same one I’ve been making every September since I learned that the ceremony of it is as important as the taste. If you have good apples and a little patience, it’s hard to get wrong.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

6 cups peeled, cored, and sliced McIntosh or tart apples (about 6–7 medium)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup water
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

Prepare the apples. Peel, core, and slice the apples into 1/4-inch slices. Toss with lemon juice in a large bowl and set aside.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the sugar, flour, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
Cook the filling base. Add the water to the saucepan and stir until smooth. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, and cook until the mixture thickens, about 2–3 minutes.
Add butter. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until melted and incorporated.
Combine with apples. Pour the thickened mixture over the sliced apples and fold gently until all slices are evenly coated.
Fill and bake. Pour the filling into a prepared pie crust. Cover with a top crust or lattice, crimp the edges, and cut vents. Bake at 400°F for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350°F and bake for an additional 35–40 minutes, until the crust is golden and the filling bubbles through the vents.
Cool before serving. Let the pie rest on a wire rack for at least 1 hour before cutting. This allows the filling to set properly.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple Pie Filling — Helen’s Crust and Thirty-Eight Septembers