Apple Slab Pie

What to do with an excessive amount of hand-picked apples?! Make a slab pie! Reece and I went to North Georgia this past weekend and stopped to pick apples at, no joke, BJ Reece Apple Orchard! What are the odds?! And, they spell it right :) 

I was contemplating what to make with all those apples before they went bad, when I got the email...an email from the blog, Smitten Kitchen, that I subscribe to (thank you for sharing Ali Barden). (See Smitten Kitchen's recipe here  http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2013/10/apple-slab-pie/). I thought, 'this is perfect! I can use up the apples, and I have something to take to small group Wednesday (thank you Small Group for being my taste testers!)!'

Ingredients
CRUST
3 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 + 1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1 + 1/2 teaspoon salt
3 sticks COLD, unsalted butter
1 c. COLD water (I even stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes!)

FILLING
about 8 cups apples - peeled and diced in to 1/2" pieces
squeeze of lemon juice (to keep apples from turning)
3/4 c. sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg (*NOTE: I substituted Penzy's pumpkin pie spice for the nutmeg and allspice)
1/4 tsp. allspice
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
1/8 tsp. salt

Steps (photos at bottom - sorry for the formatting; I am still having issues with adding captions; be sure to read the photos left to right)
Preheat Oven to 375 degrees.

CRUST (can make 1-2 days in advance; need enough time for the dough to chill)
1. Mix flour, sugar, salt.
2. Using pastry cutter (or two knives - see my technique in "Biscuit Heaven"), cut cold butter in to flour mix until you get pea-sized mix.
3. Slowly add cold water, folding dough until you get a workable ball. Knead only 3-4 times
4. Cut dough in half.
5. Wrap each half in plastic wrap and slightly flatten out to a disk shape. Let chill in fridge at least 1 hour (I let mine chill over night)

FILLING
1. Toss apples with lemon juice. Mix apples, sugar, spices, cornstarch in large bowl.

ASSEMBLY
1. Remove dough from fridge. Working quickly, roll out dough to fit your pan, leaving enough 'extra' on the edges to stand up the side of the pan. Smitten Kitchen uses a baking sheet with a 1" depth...since I didn't have such, I used a cake pan with a 2" depth. Worked just as well.
2. Spray pan with butter spray. Place first dough in bottom of pan.
3. Add apple filling.
4. Roll out 2nd dough and place atop apple filling. Tuck edges in to bottom dough edges. (Does that even make sense?!)
5. Brush top with egg wash and cut slits with knife to allow to heat flow.
6. Bake in oven 45 minutes - 1 hr.

GLAZE
Powdered sugar + water; mix well. want consistency that is pour-able but not too runny

EAT
7. Let cool for about 45 minutes.
8. Served best with vanilla ice cream :-)

Dough ingredients

Baker's tools

Cut butter in to flour mix

crumbly mixture