Excerpt from "Share a Slice of Love" by Kim Nelson
In my family, we never called a cast iron skillet a cast iron skillet. it was always called a black frying pan. My mother, Miss Geraldine, still has her grandmother’s black frying pans and uses them regularly.
Pie Dough
1 1⁄2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold 1⁄4-1⁄2 cup ice water
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
in a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, salt, and butter until the mix- ture is coarse like cornmeal. add 1⁄4 cup ice water to blend. add the remaining water a tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together into a ball. lightly flour the work surface. Knead the dough a few times and flatten into a disk. Wrap and chill until filling is ready.
Topping
1⁄4 cup (1⁄2 stick) unsalted butter,
at room temperature
1⁄4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
in a bowl, blend the butter and sugar together. Mix in the pecans. chill.
Filling
6 apples (Fuji or Gala), peeled and sliced 1⁄2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1⁄4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour Juice of 1 fresh lemon
1⁄2 - 3⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
For crust after 1 hour in the oven
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
Peel and core the apples. cut the apples into slices about 1⁄2-inch thick. Toss them with lemon juice and the remaining ingredients to coat.
flour your work surface and roll out the chilled dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Put the dough into a 7-or 8-inch greased cast iron skillet or a 9-inch glass pie plate with deep sides. let the dough hang over the sides. Spoon the filling into the skillet or pie plate. fold the overhanging dough up over the top of the apples, leaving the center uncov- ered. Bake 1 hour. remove from the oven.
Brush the crust with the 2 tablespoons of milk and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar. crumble the pecan topping over the center of the pie, not on the sugared crust. return the pie to the oven for 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly. cool on a rack. Serve warm.
Serves: 8-10 people