Secrets to Apple Slab Pie

Apple slab pie is a great way to feed a big crowd. Traditionally, it’s a double-crusted affair filled with spiced apples, and baked on a baking sheet. Short in stature, the filling is thickened to ensure neat slicing, and it’s topped with a sugary glaze.

And it’s big—real big. Like, serves-20-people-big. Regular old single-crust pie dough just won’t cut it, but making and rolling homemade pie dough for such a huge pie is a time-consuming project. So we came up with a few tricks to make the process easier. A pie this big needs a double batch of double-crust dough, but instead of trying to roll out one large crust, which was difficult to do, we rolled out four 12-inch circles, two rounds for the bottom and two rounds for the top. By taking two dough rounds and overlapping them to create one large rectangle, the dough became sturdier, and was much easier to handle. Finally, we rolled the dough in cookie crumbs to add a crisp texture and help prevent this large pie from becoming soggy.

MAKING APPLE SLAB PIE

1. Pulse animal crackers and sugar in a food processor until finely ground. Dust work surface with cracker mixture and lay 2 overlapping pieces of the pie dough on top. (Brush water between them to help seal them together.) Sprinkle more crumbs over the top and roll the pieces of dough into a 19 by 14-inch rectangle.

2. Using a rolling pin, transfer the dough to a rimmed baking sheet. Lift and press the dough into the baking sheet, letting the excess dough hang over the edge. Brush dough with butter and refrigerate until needed.

3. Add the apple filling, then roll the remaining 2 pieces of dough together into a 19 by 14-inch rectangle with the remaining crumbs. Using a rolling pin, arrange the top crust over the apples.

4. Press the edges of the top and bottom crust together. Trim the excess dough to ½ inch, fold the crust underneath, and crimp the edges using the tines of a fork.

MAKE IT NOW: Try our recipe for Apple Slab Pie, free through January 17th, 2013.