Best Apple Pie Recipe

How to Make Mabel Pond's Famous Apple Pie Recipe

Nov 11, 2009
Dianne Smith

Best Ever Apple Pie - Jasenka Petanjek

Mabel Pond was known far and wide for her unique, caramelized apple pies that no one could duplicate. Here is her secret recipe.

Mabel was born in Michigan around 1900 to a mother who loved to cook, and who was especially good at baking pies. She later taught her daughter Mabel how to bake them in their rustic kitchen.

Best Apple Pie Recipe Ever Created by Mabel Pond and her Mother

According to Karosyrup.com, one of their company manager's wives in the 1930's discovered a new use for Karo syrup. A mixture of it along with sugar, eggs, vanilla and pecans baked in a pie shell produced the most delicious pecan pie. It quickly became an American icon, and Mabel and her mother took note.

They wondered if they could take the common Michigan apple pie and give it the same caramel-like quality as their delicious pecan pies. They experimented with Karo syrup in a variety of ways and finally came up with an absolute winner of a recipe. They memorized the steps, did not set them to paper, and swore themselves to secrecy. No one would ever bake this pie but them. They continued to bake, never allowing any observers, including other family members, and went on to great local acclaim.

Mabel lived a long and fruitful life, literally with all the pies she baked. She became known as the apple pie lady, baking about two a day just for the fun of it. She gave them away to the local police and offered them to charity events where they could garner the highest bids. She gladly obliged strangers who would approach her for a pie, too. Whenever she was asked for the recipe, she always replied, "There is no recipe." The only way to get one of Mabel's pies was to ask her to bake it.

Apple Pie Recipe

Mabel Pond passed away well after her 80th birthday, but she did do the world a favor before she left. She finally wrote down her apple pie recipe.

Apple Pie Filling:

6-7 apples, peeled and sliced. Mabel liked Northern Spy but she found them "hard to come by" later in life. She liked Jonathan's, too.
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp Karo syrup

Place apples in the crust.
Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Do not use any thickener like flour as the pie filling needs to be juicy.
Dot with butter.

Apple Pie Crust:

2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tbsp. sugar
3/4 to 1 cup shortening
3 tbsp water

Rub a 9" pie pan with flour to prevent the crust from sticking.
Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.
Cut in shortening; blend well.
Add water, a little at a time; mix well.
Divide into two parts.
Roll one part into a circle to fit the 9" pie pan.
Place the filling in the crust and then roll out the top crust in a circle shape.
Place the top crust over the apples and then make 3 big, long and wide slits, each in a crescent shape. They should be evenly spaced around the top crust.
Put a small amount of milk on the top crust and swirl with one's fingers.
Bake in a preheated 350* oven for 1 hour.
After the pie has cooked some (40 minutes is accurate), shoo everyone out of the kitchen so that they can't observe this step. Then pull the pie out of the oven and shut the oven door. VERY carefully, slowly, tilt the pie over a small saucepan, allowing the juice that has been cooked out of the apples to run into it. If this is done too quickly, a big chunk of pie crust will fall into the sauce pan, and that is to be avoided.
Return the pie to the oven and finish baking it.
Then return to the saucepan and add 1 tbsp. of Karo syrup to the pie juice.
Simmer the juice and Karo syrup mixture on the stove top while the pie finishes being baked in the oven, about 20 more minutes.
When the pie is ready, a knife stuck into it should determine if the apples are soft and done. Remove the pie from the oven.
The juice mixture should have cooked down and become reduced to a syrupy texture. It should not be hard, which would mean it was simmered at too high a heat. It also should not be watery. Hold the handle of the saucepan and carefully pour the juice mixture back into the pie through the slits. Pour some all around the top crust, too. It will be a lumpy top crust, and the juice will glaze in some spots and pool in others. This pie may not win any beauty contests but it absolutely will win on taste.
Cool the pie. Serves 6.