Modern Farmer Chooses Truly Scrumptious Apple Pie

Every Monday and Wednesday, we'll announce a new Wildcard winner: a recipe that may not have been entered in (or won) a contest, but a recipe that we've tested and loved.

Today: Our friends at Modern Farmer, the Guest Editors for this week, choose this week's winner. 

Modern Farmer magazine is all about exploring the many facets of farming -- from NASA's attempt to cultivate vegetables, to farmers market etiquette, to Bill Clinton's farming history -- and making it all relevant and beautiful. Today, they chose mrslarkin's Truly Scrumptious Apple Pie as a Wildcard Winner -- and teaching us about apple storage:

Thanks to the science of cold apple storage, the majority of the apples you buy (especially at your local farmers market) are harvested in fall, and then kept fresh throughout the year. The idea is simple: set up a room where the humidity is kept high and the temperature is kept low. The solutions range from a cellar with a cold-water creek running through it to "controlled-atmosphere storage," which slows the apples' "breathing" and therefore how quickly they ripen. The bottom line? Those Granny Smiths, Golden Delicious, or Macintosh you're slicing up for this amazing wildcard recipe apple pie may be a year old -- but they taste just as good as if they were picked yesterday. 

Truly Scrumptious Apple Pie by mrslarkin

Serves 8

Pie dough (makes enough for two double-crust pies)

630 grams unbleached all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur; about 5 cups)
2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
11 ounces very cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
6 ounces very cold vegetable shortening, cut into chunks
About 1/2 cup ice water

Pie (makes one 9-inch double-crust pie)

2 chilled pie dough disks, or 1 unbaked 9-inch pie shell with top crust
3/4 cups granulated sugar, plus extra for decorating, if desired
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin
2 cups Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin
2 cups Macintosh apples, peeled, cored and sliced thin
3 wedges of fresh lemon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons cream or milk 

See the full recipe (and save and print it) here.

Photo by James Ransom