My Favorite Apple Pie Recipe.
This is the best apple pie ever. I'm not even going to be humble about it. It's just that good.
When I was in high school, I joined the FHA club. Yeah, that's right. I was a Future Homemaker of America. I joined because I wanted to learn how to do things like use a sewing machine, and cooking and stuff, without having to take the tedious classes that would entail. Also, I couldn't fit them in with all the college prep courses I was taking at the time. I got to make my own uniform. We competed in some of the regional stuff and lost out to larger, better organized clubs, but we did our thing, retro as it may have been in the 80's. Despite our losses in competition, we did decide that we wanted to go to the state convention, held in Palo Alto, and to do that we needed to raise money. We hit upon the idea of selling pies around the holidays ($5 pie!) and made a slew of pumpkin (strictly the Libby's recipe) and these apple pies.
We spent several evenings making mass quantities. It was fun and I felt like I had a life after school hours. We made enough money to fly up from Orange County (my first plane ride) and even took a limo from the airport to the hotel. Depending on how well you know me, you may or may not be surprised that the thing I got the biggest kick out of was getting a tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. So yeah, I was a shy high school girl who already knew the names of all the quarks that had thus far been discovered, yearning for something I could do with my hands. This recipe is a direct transcription from the xerox copy we worked from.
French Apple Pie
This is apple pie with the "a la mode" built right in.
1 egg
1 cup (1/2 pint) dairy sour cream, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Dash salt
2-1/2 cups finely chopped, peeled cooking apples (2 to 3 apples)
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel (I just use some lemon juice)
1 unbaked Standard pastry crust
Crumb topping, see below.
Crumb Topping:
1/4 cup (or 1 or 1/2) stick butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450F (232C). Beat egg in a large bowl; blend in sour cream, sugar, flour, vanilla, and salt. Fold in apple and lemon juice. Pour into Standard pastry crust, and bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350F (177C) and bake 30 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown. While pie is baking, prepare Crumb Topping. Sprinkle topping over pie and bake 15 minutes longer. Serve warm or cool. Makes 6 to 8 servings per pie.
Crumb Topping:
Cut butter into sugar, flour and cinnamon. Electric mixer can be used.
Things I scrawled on the bottom of the xerox copy:
Double the recipe and use a deep dish pie crust.
Cover the crust with strips of aluminum foil or crust protectors until the last 30 minutes or so of baking so that it won't burn.
Sometimes there's a small amount of leftover filling (apples rarely come out to even measurements) so I make an individual pie-ette, sans crust. You could probably divvy up the whole recipe into parchment paper-lined ramekins and skip the crust altogether. I totally would.
When I was in high school, I joined the FHA club. Yeah, that's right. I was a Future Homemaker of America. I joined because I wanted to learn how to do things like use a sewing machine, and cooking and stuff, without having to take the tedious classes that would entail. Also, I couldn't fit them in with all the college prep courses I was taking at the time. I got to make my own uniform. We competed in some of the regional stuff and lost out to larger, better organized clubs, but we did our thing, retro as it may have been in the 80's. Despite our losses in competition, we did decide that we wanted to go to the state convention, held in Palo Alto, and to do that we needed to raise money. We hit upon the idea of selling pies around the holidays ($5 pie!) and made a slew of pumpkin (strictly the Libby's recipe) and these apple pies.
We spent several evenings making mass quantities. It was fun and I felt like I had a life after school hours. We made enough money to fly up from Orange County (my first plane ride) and even took a limo from the airport to the hotel. Depending on how well you know me, you may or may not be surprised that the thing I got the biggest kick out of was getting a tour of the Stanford Linear Accelerator. So yeah, I was a shy high school girl who already knew the names of all the quarks that had thus far been discovered, yearning for something I could do with my hands. This recipe is a direct transcription from the xerox copy we worked from.
French Apple Pie
This is apple pie with the "a la mode" built right in.
1 egg
1 cup (1/2 pint) dairy sour cream, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Dash salt
2-1/2 cups finely chopped, peeled cooking apples (2 to 3 apples)
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel (I just use some lemon juice)
1 unbaked Standard pastry crust
Crumb topping, see below.
Crumb Topping:
1/4 cup (or 1 or 1/2) stick butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450F (232C). Beat egg in a large bowl; blend in sour cream, sugar, flour, vanilla, and salt. Fold in apple and lemon juice. Pour into Standard pastry crust, and bake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350F (177C) and bake 30 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown. While pie is baking, prepare Crumb Topping. Sprinkle topping over pie and bake 15 minutes longer. Serve warm or cool. Makes 6 to 8 servings per pie.
Crumb Topping:
Cut butter into sugar, flour and cinnamon. Electric mixer can be used.
Things I scrawled on the bottom of the xerox copy:
Double the recipe and use a deep dish pie crust.
Cover the crust with strips of aluminum foil or crust protectors until the last 30 minutes or so of baking so that it won't burn.
Sometimes there's a small amount of leftover filling (apples rarely come out to even measurements) so I make an individual pie-ette, sans crust. You could probably divvy up the whole recipe into parchment paper-lined ramekins and skip the crust altogether. I totally would.