Homemade Apple Pie with Canola Oil Pastry

Posted on by Getty Stewart

Got apples? Make apple pie! Need apples, join Fruit Connect now to find apples!

Make a lot of pie!

And then make more pie to share with others!

Even more fun is when you can pick apples and make pies with a friend! That’s exactly what fellow Coordinator, Katie and I did last week. After finishing up at the office, we picked an enormous amount of apples, thanks to Fruit Share, and made some of the most amazing apple pies using canola oil pastry.

We decided to try canola oil pastry after the Manitoba Canola Growers so kindly offered to help sponsor one of our events. We were also curious about what canola oil pastry would taste like and what it would be like to work with.

We were thrilled with the results and are happy to share our recipe, thoughts and comments with you. For those who just want to get right to the recipe, it’s coming right up. For those interested in our comments, continue reading after the recipe. For those who want to see more photos, keep scrolling!

Homemade Apple Pie with Canola Oil Pastry
 
Save Print
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
You're going to love this classic apple & cinnamon pie. The pastry, made with frozen canola oil, is easy to work with, produces a nice tender crust and has no trans-fats.
Author:
Recipe type: Apples
Serves: 1
Ingredients
  • Pastry
  • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • 1 Tbsp sugar
  • ⅔ cup canola oil, frozen (measure and freeze oil in jam jar the night before)
  • ½ cup ice water
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbsp vinegar (we used apple cider vinegar)
  • Filling
  • 2 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 2 ½ lbs of apples (6-8 cups chopped apples)
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup white sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
  • Egg wash
  • 1 egg
  • 1 Tbsp water
  • ½ Tbsp turbinado sugar
Method
  1. In a food processor, add flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. Pulse briefly to mix ingredients.
  2. Add frozen canola oil. Pulse again once or twice.
  3. Combine water, egg and vinegar in a small bowl.
  4. With food processor running, slowly pour liquid ingredients through the chute. Turn off machine as soon as ingredients are mixed, about 10 seconds.
  5. Turn dough out onto floured board. Divide dough in half.
  6. Wrap each dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
  7. Add lemon juice to large bowl of water in which to place apples to avoid browning.
  8. Wash, peel and slice apples into ½ inch sized slices. Place in lemon water.
  9. In separate bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon and flour.
  10. Scoop apples out of water and drain. Add to sugar mix and stir well.
  11. Preheat oven to 425°F.
  12. Roll one pastry ball into 12 inch circle. To prevent sticking use plenty of flour, lift and turn dough frequently. Fold dough onto rolling pin and transfer to pie plate.
  13. Pour apple mix into pastry.
  14. Roll out remaining dough.
  15. Moisten edge of pie shell with water to ensure a tight seal. Place top crust over apples.
  16. Tuck excess pastry under bottom crust and crimp edges.
  17. Make at least five small vents in top crust to allow steam to escape.
  18. Whisk together egg and water. Use pastry brush to evenly coat top of pie with egg wash. Sprinkle turbinado sugar on top.
  19. Bake pie at 425°F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 375°F and bake for additional 30 minutes.
  20. Remove from oven and cool slightly before serving so filling sets a little.
Notes
The egg wash is what gives the crust a nice golden color, we highly recommend it.
Turbinado sugar has nice large crystals that look very nice on the finished pie, you can use white sugar for a more even look.

How to Freeze Canola Oil

Remember to freeze your canola oil before you begin this recipe, it’ll need to be in the freezer for at least two hours. Here’s how:

  • measure 2/3 cup canola oil
  • pour into a wide rimmed container – we used a glass jam jar
  • place in freezer for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight

Canola oil thaws very quickly. While the recipe will work after a little bit of melting, we preferred working with it while it was frozen solid, so we left it in the freezer right up until we needed it in the recipe.  We used a butter knife to cut/break/crumble the frozen canola oil out of the jar and immediately mixed it with the flour mix.

Our Thoughts and Comments About Using Canola Oil Pastry

  • The crust comes out beautifully. With the egg wash, it has a nice golden color with a crisp surface and nice tenderness throughout. It has some flake to it and if you’re really paying attention you’ll notice a slightly grainy texture.  Have a look at the inside here.
  • This pastry dough is softer than other pastry we’ve worked with.  At first we wondered if we added too much liquid, but after repeated testing, we realized that’s just what it’s suppose to be like. It may be different than what you’re used to, but it works!
  • Because it was softer, working this dough was somewhat easier than other pastry.  After getting used to it, we actually enjoyed how maneuverable it was. Just like any pastry, you don’t want to overwork it, but  we found this canola oil pastry to be a little more forgiving.
  • Using the food processor made making this pastry super easy. However, we have also made this pastry by hand with a pastry blender – it worked just fine, just don’t overwork the dough.
  • When storing the dough in the fridge, the dough will weep somewhat as the oil melts,  that’s expected and not a problem, but you do want to put your dough on a plate.
  • Use lots of flour when rolling out your dough and lift and turn it so it doesn’t stick, that’s just standard pie making practice.
  • The egg and baking powder in the dough give a little extra lift and tenderness.
  • A touch of sugar in the dough also provides tenderness, helps with browning and just tastes good!
  • We highly recommend the egg wash as it creates that nice golden brown crust. The canola oil itself won’t cause much browning.
  • If you’re dough is getting hard to work with and just won’t behave, give it a rest – literally, wrap it up and let it rest in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
  • We made lattice and full top crusts using this pastry dough. Both worked just fine, although we did find this dough did not hold tight shapes (likely due to the baking powder), like the zigzag edge on the lattice.  We think our lattice top pie still looked AMAZING, but we thought we should mention it just in case you’re trying to make intricate cut outs.

Overall, we were very happy with our canola oil pastry apple pies. More importantly, so were our friends and family that got to taste these beauties!

Here are a few more photos of before and after.

We used freshly picked Manitoba apples for our pie.
A mountain of apples in the shell – remember, they’ll settle so err on the side of too many!
A lovely lattice top. Next time, I’d bring the dough up a little higher so I can finish the edges a little nicer – but nobody seemed to mind!
“Mom, this is the best pie you’ve ever made.” Said my teenage boy, who has been eating my pies for 16 years.
Egg wash and a sprinkling of sugar make all the difference.

What do you think, will you give canola oil pastry a try? If you do, be sure to post your photo on Facebook and Instagram tag #FruitShareWpg and #MakeItCanola so you can get a little social media lovin’!