Parks Canada Heritage Gourmet Recipes

Colonel Rogers Administration Building Apple Pie

The recipe for this classic apple pie has been handed down from generation to generation. It is especially delicious served with Limburger cheese.

Origin: Jasper Park Information Centre National Historic Site
Region: West (Alberta)
Period: 19^th Century
Course: Desserts and Baked Goods

Photo of Colonel Rogers, his wife Annette and their dog
© Courtesy of Jasper Yellowhead Historical Society

In the 1920s, Marie Louise Camp worked as a maid for Jasper National Park superintendent Lieutenant Colonel Maynard Rogers, who lived in the building that is now the park’s Information Centre. In an interview, she remembered the following amusing incident:

“…we were having special guests so I had to prepare an apple pie. That night at dinner The Colonel rang the bell and said they were ready for dessert, so I served the apple pie. He said “we will have cheese with it” and I said I had spent some time trying to pick the mould out of it but it was too far gone. The janitor, Dan Patch, had come into the kitchen and said “What the heck stinks in here?” I showed him the cheese and he said it was rotten so he had thrown it in the garbage pail and fed it to the chickens. The Colonel was so mad! We had thrown his good Limburger cheese to the chickens, but it was the first I’d ever seen.”

Colonel Rogers Administration Building Apple Pie

Ingredients:

• Filling
  • ⅔ cup | 170 ml sugar
  • ¼ cup | 60 ml sifted all-purpose flour
  • ½ tsp | 2.5 ml ground nutmeg
  • ½ tsp | 2.5 ml ground cinnamon
  • pinch of salt
  • 8 medium-sized firm apples (a medium apple = about 1 cup)
  • 2 tbsp | 30 ml butter
  
  
• Crust (recipe makes one double crust)
  • 2½ cups | 625 ml sifted all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsp | 30 ml sugar
  • 1.25ml / 1/4 tsp. salt
  • ½ cup | 125 ml chilled butter, cut into small pieces
  • tbsp | 75 ml lard
  • 18 tbsp | 270 ml ice water

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C).
• Filling:
  • Peel, core and slice the apples, keeping the size of the slices even. Mix the sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt in large bowl and toss with the apples.
• Crust:
  • Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. With a knife or pastry cutter, cut in the chilled butter and lard. Do not over mix. Add the ice water. Mix until the dough holds together, adding more water, if necessary. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it together and then divide it in half. Flatten each half into a disk and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour. Roll out one of the disks on a lightly floured surface until you have a circle that's about 12 inches in diameter. Place the circle in a pie plate, trimming any excess dough from the edges with a sharp knife. Return it to the ice box until you are ready to make the pie.
• Pour the apple filling into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with butter.
• Roll out the second ball of dough into another 12-inch diameter circle; cover the top of the apples with the circle. Use a fork or your fingers to pinch the edges of the pastry together. Cut slits in the top of the pie. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until the crust is brown and juices begin to bubble through the slits in the crust.

Credits:

Recipe tested by Chef Sean Edwards, Algonquin College School of Hospitality and Tourism

The recipe comes to us from Parks Canada employee Deb Joly. It was passed down to her from her great-grandmother.