Apple Slab Pie

Does anyone else have this problem? You go apple picking, get overzealous, and then bring home a couple dozen apples too many and you have NO IDEA how to use them all? That happens to me every year. My kids thought it was so great to take an apple out of the bowl, take one or two bites, and then return the apple back to the bowl (I either ended up finishing most of the half-eaten apples and then turned the rest into applesauce). But for the other apples I had, I found this recipe for Apple Slab Pie  on Smitten Kitchen that called for 8 cups of apples - perfect! That ended up being about 8 large apples, if I remember correctly.

In addition to using up a ton of apples, this recipe was perfect for many other reasons. I have never had a slab pie before but I like it better than apple pie. The crust-to-filling ratio was perfect. You could eat it in your hand and it was not messy at all (surprisingly!). It could feed a crowd - as you can tell in the photo, mine was cut into 15 slices. The crust cooked through uniformly and it was a golden brown on top. Bonus - you could prepare the apples and the crust dough the night before baking it, which is what I did.

While I do bake a lot, I have not always had a lot of luck making homemade pie crusts. I was nervous to try this because I was making it to serve to guests, so I was extra careful when I was mixing up the dough, making sure I wasn't handling it too much because I wanted to keep the butter as cold as I could. It ended up rolling out perfectly the next day, and baking up to a crispy golden brown.

I thought it tasted great using a mix of apples from the orchard but I think if you just used macintosh or golden delicious apples, it could be just as yummy.

So. Incredibly. DELICIOUS. Better than regular apple pie!