This is for everybody that doesn’t like to or hasn’t mastered the art of pie crusts, and for feeding larger crowds. Here’s how it works: starting with an easy dough crust that is pressed onto the bottom and up the sides of a large pan, you then add a filling and topping. It’s easy and delicious and most of the ingredients are probably sitting in your cupboards right now. Using a bit of whipped cream never hurts, either.
Crust
4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt (kosher salt, if possible)
2 cups shortening, such as Crisco
Filling
1/2 cup maple syrup – divided
8 large apples – whatever type you want or a mixture – peeled, sliced, chopped
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice (fresh is best)
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. (a pinch) of ground nutmeg
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Crumbly Top
1 cup flour
1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter (no margarine, please!)
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get out your large baking pan (jelly roll style) lightly grease it and set it aside. In a large bowl, combine the salt and the 2 cups flour then cut in the shortening until it looks like little coarse crumbs (kinda like oatmeal) – if you do it with your hands, it’s messy but works well. Form this is into a flat disk and plop onto the greased pan. Press this dough down onto the bottom and up the sides of the greased pan – best way to do this is to place a sheet of plastic wrap over the dough, press down and spread.
Now spread 1/4 cup of the maple syrup over the crust and put the apples slices or chunks spread out all over the syrup. Then into a large bowl, combine the the other 1/4 cup of syrup, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg & vanilla and drizzle over the apples.
Then for the topping – put the flour and sugar into a bowl and with your hands mix and squish the butter in until it becomes crumbly; sprinkle over the filling and bake for about 1 hour – or until the crust is golden browned and apples are bubbly. Remove from oven, let set for about 10 minutes then cut into squares. A pizza cutter works great.