I'm glad I decided to tackle the Slab Apple Pies as one of the first things today because they definitely were a bit more work and if I'd waited until the end of the day, I'm pretty positive I would have run out of steam!
I followed the recipe exactly as written here (Yes, can you believe it? I actually followed a recipe without making any changes or substitutions! We should write that one down in my baby book since it certainly is a rarity!)
I used mostly organic apples which I'd picked up a few weeks back at the health food store reduced to $0.99 per bag. They were still in pretty great shape and perfect for use in baking!
After about 45 minutes of peeling, coring, and slicing (and wishing I had an automatic apple peeler/corer/slicer!), I was done with apples!
I made up the crusts and put everything into individual bags to be able to quickly through together this next month when I'm in need of a yummy dessert.
I almost gave in and made one up for dinner tonight since the picture of the finished result here looks so delicious, but I showed immense self-control and just packaged them all up for the freezer!
Next up: Brown Sugar Biscuit Twists
I hope you find a corer/peeler under your Christmas tree! I hesitated for so long, since I try to avoid single-use gadgets. However, we use ours more than enough to make it worth the storage space and the kids can turn the crank themselves!
When I saw your picture of those nice, even slices of apples, I thought for a second that you might have used a food processor! I love using mine when making scalloped potatoes–I’m sure it would work great with apples, after you peel and core them yourself.
(Also, It’s great for shredding cheese quickly, it is wonderful for cutting butter into biscuit batter and pie crust, and the clean-up is easy when you rinse it out right away–as is just about everything.)
I vote you put a Cuisinart on your Christmas list–and a 7 cup minimum for size. You do such large batches, you need a big one. Mine is the ONE machine (besides a coffee maker) I wouldn’t part with, because it saves SO much time.
Great work on the baking day!
I just baked one of these after seeing it on your site and wow it smells good and looks delicious! I can’t wait for hubby to finish putting the girls to bed so we can dig in to it!!!
I made the slab apple pie last month and my family loved it. I need to make it again.
I have being making this almost every other day for the last two weeks. On Sunday I was in the grocery store and saw that they had marked down trays of apples. I bought 9lbs of apples of @2.97. I was able to make 4 batches and even got to freeze some.
I say if you have trouble finding freezer space, I’d go ahead and bake one!
I agree with Catherine….they’re handy if you have a perfectly symmetrical apple. But if the core is off even a little bit you end up spending more time cutting the core out than if you had just done it by hand. My husband gave up using it when we made a bunch of home made apple pie filling and ended up peeling, cutting, and coring all of the apples by hand for 9 quarts of filling!!
I will tell you right now that my mom has one of those peel/slice/core machines and they are both a blessing and a curse! If you have a bunch of apples that are of a “normal” shape and size (about the size of your fist or maybe a little bigger), you will love it. However, I bought a bushel of apples to make applesauce from a local farmers market, and HOLY MOLY these were some HUUUUUGE apples! One was 2.5 pounds – ONE APPLE! Those did not fair well with the peeler. We gave up trying to use it and just peeled & sliced by hand. The cores were so crooked anyway it wasn’t really going to work.
Awww…come on. I think you’ve earned one today! That recipe looks great!
I know what you mean about the apple/corer/slicer/peeler thingamajig. I was eyeing one in a store the other day. Maybe for a future Christmas present?
Let us know how they turn out when you do take one out to bake!