Grandma’s Apple Pie with Oil Pastry Crust
If you’ve read Dead of Winter Break, you know Cassandra Sato spends her first Christmas away from home learning the joys of a truly cozy Midwestern holiday, complete with pie.
When she and her best friend Meg bake together, this is the apple pie recipe they use: my own grandma’s flaky, foolproof oil pastry crust paired with a lightly spiced apple filling.
In real life, this pie comes with a funny family controversy. I grew up never seeing a store-bought crust and didn’t even realize such a thing existed. Meanwhile, my husband makes an excellent strawberry rhubarb pie but insists the Pillsbury crust is just as good. I disagree with every fiber of my baker’s soul, but marriage is all about compromise, right?
This homemade crust is wonderfully forgiving, easy to mix with pantry staples, and consistently tender and flaky. If you’re baking with kids, save the leftover scraps and sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar. It takes only a few minutes and produces an almost magical level of delight. (It was my favorite part as a kid.)
Whether you’re making this for Thanksgiving, a holiday gathering, or a cold morning when pie counts as breakfast (no judgment here), I hope this recipe brings a little comfort and nostalgia to your table.
Grandma’s Apple Pie with Oil Pastry Crust
Ingredients
Pie Crust – Makes 2 small crusts. Double this to make a deep-dish pie.
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 4-5 tbsp ice cold water add an ice cube to the water for a minute to make it cold enough
Pie Filling
- 5-6 medium sized apples, more if your dish is deep macintosh, jonathan, honeycrisp (it's ok to mix different kinds of apples together)
- 1 tsp cinnamon I like using pumpkin pie spice instead
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup sugar (I use Stevia sugar substitute) depending on tartness of the apples
- 2 tbsp flour
- 2 tbsp butter My grandma used margarine but butter is better, IMHO
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Prepare crust
- Mix the pie crust ingredients in order with a fork in a medium bowl until it forms a ball. Divide into two smaller balls for a two crust pie.
- Place a 12 inch square of wax paper under the ball and another square on top. Roll the crust until it's large enough to fit in your pie plate. Peel off the top layer of wax paper. Flip the crust into the pie plate and center it. Carefully peel off the wax paper and gently fix any cracks or holes as you form it into the plate. Roll out the top pie crust and set it aside.
Prepare pie filling
- Peel and cut apples into slices and spread them evenly over the bottom crust in the plate.
- Evenly sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the apples. Then sprinkle the flour. Cut up butter into small pats or chunks and place over top of the apples.
- Carefully peel off the top layer of wax paper and flip the top crust over the pie. Center it as best you can. (Mine never looks perfect, but you can fix it later.) Peel off the wax paper and crimp the edges to seal the top and bottom crusts together with your fingers. Use the extras that hang over the edge to fill in the short spots as needed. (If you're freezing the pie, this is where you stop.)
- Kid Tip: If there's extra crust along the edges, you can cut them away from the plate and lay the extra strips on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and bake them for about 5-8 minutes in the oven on a different rack than the pie. This used to be my favorite part of baking pies. My mom might have made extra crust just so there'd be little bits leftover for us to snack on while the pie was baking.
- Sprinkle more cinnamon and sugar over the top crust. With a sharp knife cut a few vent holes in the top. Cut 2-3 strips about 4 inches wide of aluminum foil. Gently wrap the foil around the outer edges of the pie plate so the pie crust edges don't over-bake or burn. Brown, crunchy edges are sad. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil strips and bake for another 25 minutes until the top is golden brown.
- Let it cool on the counter for at least 30 minutes to an hour.
- You can make several pies up to a month or more in advance and freeze them before baking. Cover the pie in plastic wrap first and then foil. To serve, let it defrost overnight in the fridge and bake them per instructions for a fresh pie any time.
Kelly Brakenhoff is the author of 17 books and a seasoned ASL interpreter. She splits her writing energy between two series: cozy mysteries set on a college campus and children’s books featuring Duke the Deaf Dog.
In 2025, two of her children’s books were selected for the CBC Favorites Award Lists, honored by teachers and librarians nationwide for excellence in children’s literature. Parents, kids, and educators love the Duke the Deaf Dog books and activity guides because they introduce ASL and the Deaf community through engaging stories.
And if you enjoy a smart female sleuth, want to learn more about Deaf culture, or have lived in a place where livestock outnumber people, the Cassandra Sato Mystery series will have you connecting the dots faster than a group project thrown together the night before it’s due.
A proud mom to four adults, head of the dog-snuggling department, and grandma to a growing brood of perfectly behaved grandkids, Kelly and her husband call Nebraska home.