Apple Pie Recipe

This Thanksgiving, enrich your life with the best tasting and easiest to make apple pie recipe on the internet. After all, nothing is quite as American as apple pie except, perhaps, Thanksgiving (a large apology to the 4th of July, Memorial Day and National Talk Like a Pirate Day). And perhaps that is why you can't celebrate Thanksgiving without giving thanks to apple pie, by consuming large quantities.

However, before you can gorge yourself, you must first acquire apple pie. An easy way to do this is to go the store and buy some. A better way is to make it yourself. For starters, it tastes better when you make it yourself (especially when you use the best tasting recipe on the internet). It uses a handful of cheap readily available ingredients. Most importantly, it's easier to make than you might think and can be done relatively quickly. It is hands down one of the most rewarding, and tasty, things I know how to make.

This pie has won a blue ribbon at the Inaugural Instructables Pre-Thanksgiving Luncheon.

Stuff you will need...

For the crust:
2 cups flours
2 sticks cold butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup ice water

For the filling:
6 assorted apples (I used Rome, Granny Smith, Fuji and some mystery apple from Washington)
1 Tablespoon of flour
About a teaspoon of cinnamon
1 tablespoon (real) maple syrup
1 tablespoon of butter
2 tea spoons of fresh lemon juice
(1/2 a teaspoon of grated lemon peel)

For the topping:
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour plus a little
1 stick cold butter
a pinch of cinnamon

Tools:
Pie tin
2-3 mixing bowls
Measuring cups
Measuring spoons
Forks, spoons, butter knives
Mixing Spoons
Cutting knives
Pastry blender
Rolling pin
Colander
Grater
Aluminum foil
Plastic wrap

Stick two cups of cold water in the freezer to chill.

Start the dough for the crust by mixing together the two cups of flour with the half teaspoon of salt

Take your two sticks of cold butter and cut them into small slices. Put these slices into the dough and mix them in with your pastry blender. Don't be shy about it. You need to grind it all together until it starts to form small clumps.

Mix the ice water into the dough approximately one tablespoon at a time and continue mixing it in until the dough can hold itself together. You probably shouldn't end up putting too much more than a quarter of a cup.

Lightly sprinkle flour onto your hands and rub it around such that your hands are coated. You do this so that you can handle the dough in the next step without it being sticky.

(You did wash your hands first, right?)

With both hands roll the dough around until it forms a single solid ball.

Lightly flour your counter surface and place dough ball on it. With rolling pin spread out dough until it is roughly 12" square (1 foot). A good method for stretching it out evenly is to roll back and forth around the dough in a clockwise manner such that you stretch it at least once in every direction.

Wipe down your pie tin with butter and then lightly flour it. This is to keep the dough from sticking.

With both hands, carefully lift your dough off the counter and transfer it into the pie tin (be careful not to rip it). Lightly push it down so that it fills in the entire pie dish. Also, trim away the extra dough from around the rim. if you want, you can lightly dot all over the bottom of the pie with the fork (but don't go all the way through).

Cover the pie crust with plastic wrap and let it refrigerate for at least over an hour.

Wait an hour for the dough to cool.

Wash, core and cut the apples into thin slices.

Places them into a large mixing bowl.

When life hands you lemons, juice them until you have roughly 2 teaspoons of lemon juice.

You can also grate off some of the lemon peel until you have roughly half a teaspoon to add to the mix.

Mix into the apples:
A teaspoon and a half of lemon juice
A tablespoon of maple syrup
Roughly 1 tablespoon of butter
Around a teaspoon of Cinnamon (I used a little more)
A tablespoon of flour
(half a teaspoon of grated lemon peel)

Mix together the ingredients listed in Step 1 for the crumbs. With your pastry blender, mix well until you can no longer see any chunks of butter and small crumbs have formed. It helps if you pound the mixture with the pastry blender.

Take your pie crust out of the refrigerator and fill it up with the apples. Pile the apples a few inches higher than the rim of the pan since the apples will set once baked. Cover the apples completely with your crumbs.

Loosely cover the pie in aluminum foil and bake for 50 minutes at 425 degrees. After the first 50 minutes, remove the aluminum foil and bake until the crumbs start turning golden brown.

When your pie is done, remove it from the oven (don't forget to turn the oven off!) and set it either on a cooling rack or unused stove burner.

Give it some time to cool off before you serve it.

Serve warm and with ice cream.