Apple Appeal

It is officially the start of apple season! My parents have a Golden Delicious tree that offers me an abundant supply of golden deliciousness. I set out to make an apple pie only to realize that I was really low on flour, and so this turned into more of an apple tart (I only had enough flour for a bottom crust). This also directed my decor a bit. Instead of a lattice, I only had a few crust scraps for the top, and used them to make some fall leaves for the top of the pie. Since the apples were now on full display, I was also more conscious about the placement of the apple slices in the pie. I tried to lower the sugar and butter content in my version as compared to standard recipes. Golden Delicious apples help with this as they are sweeter than the more commonly used Granny Smith apples, but still have a slight tartness that makes apple pie so good! I think that in spite of the cut backs and lack of a top crust, the apple pie turned out quite well. Here is what the recipe ended up being (for a 9x9 square pie):

Crust:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 pinch salt
2 tbsp butter (cold, cubed into 1/4'' pieces)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp milk (cold)

Mix the flour, butter, sugar, salt, and cinnamon by hand until the mixture has the texture of breadcrumbs. Then add the milk and kneed into a soft pliable dough. Roll out to a size slightly bigger than your pan (or in my case a Pyrex casserole dish--easy cutting, storage, and clean-up!) and place in the bottom of your pan. Since there is butter in the dough, there is no need to flour dust or grease your pan (at least in the Pyrex). Let bake at 375 degrees F for 15mins. (I find that if you do not pre-bake the crust, the moisture of the filling prevents the center of the crust from becoming as crispy as I would like it to be).

Filling:
5 small golden delicious apples (cut into thin slices--peel still on)
6 tsp granulated sugar
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1-2 tsp of cinnamon (to taste)

Mix the ingredients up in a bowl and arrange in your pie crust. Easy, right?! Add the crust-leaf embellishments and bake at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes. I noticed that because there was no top crust, the apples were drying out a bit. Half-way through the baking process I drizzled a bit of water on the apples to keep them moist.

The end result was great. The crust was crisp and flaky, and the apples had the right blend of sweet and tart and were still a bit crunchy (this is not a mushy pie filling--again, more like an apple tart). It was hard to have just one slice!