In a large bowl, mix the all-purpose flour, sugar and salt. To this add small bits of chilled butter. I weighed both my flour and butter instead of measuring it.

Mixing All purpose flour with butter

Using a pastry blender or a fork, work the flour and the butter until it starts resembling crumbs.

Mixing the flour butter mixture to resemble crumbs

Now slowly add about a tablespoon at a time of ice-cold water into the mixture and make dough. I needed about 3 tablespoon of water to make my dough. Depending upon your dough consistency carefully add one tablespoon of water at a time and form a soft dough.

Divide the dough into 2 equal parts and wrap it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for about an hour. At this stage, you could also freeze the dough for about a month.

Peel, core, and cut the apples into small pieces. To this add the rest of the ingredients (except the butter) and mix well. Depending upon the kind of apple, use either 1 tablespoon or more of flour. I used about 3 tablespoon of flour for my filling and it was perfect. Leave this mixture aside for about an hour.

At the end of the hour, you will notice that the apples have let out moisture. Collect this in a bowl, add the 1 tablespoon butter, and microwave on high for 2 minutes. The liquid would have been reduced by this process and would appear syrupy.

Pour this syrup back into the apple mixture and mix.

Take one of the dough out and in between two layers of parchment roll it out into a thin circle. The circle should be larger than your pie plate and should be enough to cover the base of the pie pan and also come to the top. I measured about 12 inches on all sides and rolled it out. Alternatively, you could also flour the surface and roll it without the parchment.

Now slowly wrap the rolled-out dough onto the rolling pin and lay it on the pie pan. Make sure that you press down the dough on the pie pan to cover the entire pan and you should have the dough hanging in the top.

Now fill the pan with the apple mixture.

Roll out the other half of the dough the exact same way and lay it on top of the apples.

Pinch the seams of the dough attaching the bottom layer and top layer. At this stage, you could also make some decorative trims to the pie. I used my thumb as the guideline and pinched dough at equal intervals to get a pattern.

Now make steam vents on the top layer. Make sure to vent it out to prevent any accidents in the oven. You could also get creative here and make patterns.

Brush the top of the pie with milk and sprinkle the granulated sugar.

Bake in a preheated 375 F oven for about 50-60 mins. Mine took about 55 minutes to form a golden brown crust and a bubbling filling. I also covered the edges of the crust with aluminum foil halfway through the baking process to prevent over-browning.

Baking the apple pie

Transfer the pie pan onto a cooling rack and let it cool entirely before slicing.

Adjust the flour quantity in the filling based on the kind of apple you are using. If using Granny Smith or any other less juicier firm variety use about 1 tbsp. For the juicier variety of apples, use about 3 tbsp.

Make sure to seal the edges of the pie well. This will avoid any leaking of the juices in between the pie and the pan.

Remember to vent the top of the pie for steam to escape.

You might have to cover the rim/edges of the pie with an aluminum foil halfway into the baking to prevent the crust from overbrowning.

Allow the pie to cool entirely before slicing. The filling is still juicier when warm and it thickens as the pie cools.