The changing of the seasons is upon us and if you wake up early enough, there’s a crisp smell to the air. Fall is almost here! If you are lucky enough to experience the four seasons then you are also lucky enough to engage in all of the fall activities such as pumpkin and apple picking.
One of the most important things a family with children who have food allergies can do is make them feel included. Most of their day, especially our school bound tikes, is making sure they are protected from harmful food allergies which can often be isolating. For example, special seating accommodations are put in place to avoid exposure (Gavin, 2018). But what if your child is the only one with food allergies? This leaves them alone during a critical social hour and that is why the more inclusive activities they can experience the better.
If you’re like our family, you go overboard with the apple picking and by overboard, I mean coming home with 32 apples. However, when life hands you apples, make apple pie! Together, we are going to construct the best vegan gluten-free apple pie that anyone with food allergies can enjoy. So preheat that oven, peel your apples, and let’s get ready to bake!
Step 1: The Crust
As the foundation, crust can either make or break the taste and construction of any pie. Making that crust vegan gluten-free so that it does not contain egg, dairy, and wheat, well that is another story. However, with the right recipe such as the flaky gluten-free pie crust from the Minimalist Baker , it is not has hard as it sounds. The only change I would add here is that she recommends her using her own gluten-free blend flour but the 1:1 Baking Flour by Bob’s Red Mill does the trick.
Step 2: The Filling
Here is where all of those apples you picked come into play. Technically, you will use only 4 for this recipe but that’s 4 less apples than what you started with. What is great about apple pie filling is that it is naturally vegan-gluten free and you likely have all of the ingredients already in your kitchen cabinets. This recipe in particular takes less than 15 minutes, contains only 6 ingredients, and tastes absolutely delicious. I would like to mention here that I subbed out the cornstarch for gluten-free flour and it produced the same results.
Step 3: The Crumble
This last step is completely optional for your pie can be topped with more crust or it can be topped with a brown sugar, oat crumble very similar to an apple crisp. I might be biased here but what’s better than warm, crumble apple pie topped with dairy-free vanilla ice cream?! Going back to the Minimilast Baker, I suggest using the crumble portion of the Deep Dish Apple Pie recipe for it is not super sweet and really lets the apples shine through.
FINAL RESULTS
Once assembled and baked, the results are nothing short of amazing. As you can see here, everything comes together so nicely. While toppings are your choice, this pie pairs great with a scoop of SoDelicious dairy-free vanilla ice cream that comes made with either cashew, coconut, or oat milk depending on any allergies. From there, add a small or heaping amount of Reddi Wip coconut milk whipped cream and voila! Home-made vegan gluten-free apple pie.
References
Gavin, M. (2018, June). Food allergies factsheet (for schools) (for parents) – nemours kidshealth. Kidshealth.org. https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/food-allergies-factsheet.html