Well, to celebrate Pi Day, obviously I had to bake pie! Here is my personal Apple Pie recipe! It involves a lot of tasting apples, so it’s win before it even goes into the oven. I use my grandma’s pie crust recipe, which you can find right here: Grandma Gloria’s Flaky Oil Pie Crust.
Today I baked two pies; one with a cinnamon crust and one with a regular crust. The cinnamon crust looks slightly more brown. I used the small style pie tins and I used 10 cups of apples, but I could have used more as they really settle down by the time I put them in the crusts.
First, peel, core, and slice all your apples. I like to watch Netflix on my phone while I do this. I recommend Midsummer Murders.
Next, add your seasonings and taste. If you have really delicious apples, add cinnamon and a little salt and start there. Don’t add more than the apples need. If your apples don’t have a lot of flavor themselves, you’ll need everything on the list. In the fall, when I have granny smith apples, I don’t even add sugar to the apples. I love the tart apples with just cinnamon.
Once you are happy with your apples, prep your crust. The recipe I provided the link to above is my own Grandma’s recipe. For real. I learned to make it as a teenager and now my Grandma is in her 80’s and has arthritis so bad she doesn’t cook at all. So I bake her pie. With her own crust recipe that she taught me all those years ago.
When your bottom crust is in place in the tin, dump in your apples. Hopefully, you end up with a little mounded hill of apple. Add your little pieces of butter and your top crust.
Sprinkle on some sugar if you like, and decorate with extra dough if you’re so inclined. I had to decorate mine today, because it’s Pi Day. March 14. 3.14. Get it?
Put the pie on a cookie sheet, especially if it’s got a nice hill of apples, because it might drip or spill and it’s much easier to clean a cookie sheet than the oven.
Bake for an hour, check, make sure the edges are browned a bit and you’re done! Let it cool and then serve! My Granddad likes his pie with ice cream. I can’t really argue with that!
Bethany’s All-Star Apple Pie
Ingredients
- 5 cups apples peeled and sliced thin
- 1/4 tsp cloves ground
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 Tbls sugar OPTIONAL, depending on the sweetness of your apples
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tbls butter
- 2 Crusts top/bottom
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.The amount of apples you will need differs depending on the size of pie tin you are using. You want them mounding up in a rounded hill when you add them to your crust. You may need more apples then 5 cups to fill your tin. Remember that the apples cook down a lot, so err on the side of too many. Peel, core, and slice your apples.
- Add your seasonings and stir until well mixed. Taste an apple slice. Add seasonings as needed to get a great tasting apple. It won’t change much after baking, so make sure you love the flavor before it goes into the oven. Add more sugar if it isn’t sweet. Depending on the type of apples, you may not need ANY sugar, or you may need more than listed. You can’t really go wrong; if you get too strong a flavor going, add more apples.
- Allow the apples to juice up while you make your crust or prep your store bought crust.
- Dump your apples into your bottom crust in your pie tin.
- Add 1 Tbls of butter, cut into pieces, scattered around the fruit.
- Add the top crust. Trim and decorate as desired. Scatter some sugar over the top. Bake for 1 hr until the crust is lightly browned around the edge. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before serving.
