Just Fold Apples Into Biscuit Dough! The Fried Pies Grandma Made Every Christmas

📖 Texas Ranch Cooking (Straight from the Chuckwagon) — 428 pages, 116 recipes, 36 old ranch tricks: wadescookingbook.netlify.app Ada's Dried-Apple Fried Pies are Recipe No. 105 (page 240). The quick biscuit-dough version uses Homemade Biscuit Mix, No. 116 (page 264). Most folks who fill their fried pies with fresh apples end up with pies that split open in the grease, and it was never their fault. ⭐ WHAT YOU NEED For the filling (makes enough for 12 pies): • 8 oz dried apples • 2 cups water • ½ cup sugar • 1 teaspoon cinnamon For the dough, pick one: • Grandma June's quick way: 2 cups Homemade Biscuit Mix + ⅔ cup milk (page 264) • Ada's pastry: 3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, ¾ cup lard, ⅔ cup cold water (page 240) For frying and finishing: • Lard or oil, about 1 inch deep • A cast iron skillet or Dutch oven, a thermometer, and a wire rack • Powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar ⭐ THE 7 TRICKS 1. Use dried apples, not fresh. Fresh apples turn to steam and split the seams (pages 240–241). 2. Cook the filling down thick and let it go completely cold before you fill (pages 240–241). 3. Biscuit dough or lard pastry? Both are good. Pastry is crisper, biscuit dough is softer and faster (pages 240 and 264). 4. Keep everything cold, handle it lightly, and roll the dough thin, about ⅛ inch. "Cold dough, cold filling, hot grease." (page 294) 5. Don't overfill. Use about 1½ tablespoons per pie, wet the edge, and crimp both sides with a fork (page 241). 6. Fry in lard, drain on a rack instead of paper towels, and dust while warm (pages 65, 240, 279). 7. Hold the grease at 350°F. Fry 2 or 3 at a time, about 2 minutes per side, and let the grease recover between batches (pages 65, 141, 241). THE HONEST WORDS: • Split open → the filling was too thin or too warm, or the pie was overfilled. • Greasy → the grease wasn't hot enough, or the skillet was crowded. • Dark outside, raw inside → the grease was too hot, or the dough was rolled too thick. • Tough dough → it was worked too much. • Biscuit dough flat and dense → old self-rising flour. It loses its punch after about 6 months (page 296). These pies rode in a chuck wagon across the whole state of Texas. They were never fancy, just the treat that made a hard life feel like Christmas. Were you taught to use fresh apples too? Tell me your county in the comments. The top comment picks the next video. 👇