Yesterday Tyler and I had the pleasure of being judges at a local apple pie contest. Why didn’t I enter said contest? Firstly, I didn’t know about the contest until the day before and I had things to do the day of, so I didn’t really have time to bake a pie. Secondly, once I heard about the contest and realized I couldn’t bake a pie, I set my sights on being a judge. I had an in with the farmer’s market sponsoring the contest–my brother sits on the board. So we simply showed up yesterday and begged to be judges. It was awesome.
We sampled 7 pies and let me tell you, I was really surprised to find that they all tasted completely different. One was really really sweet, another had a lemony taste, one pie had rum in it (I have to say, that one was particularly disgusting), one was gluten free, another had a crumb crust, and yet another had cranberries in it! The cranberry apple pie won my vote while Tyler gave the pie with the crumb crust top honors. To be honest, we had to leave before the votes were tallied (I think there were six judges) so I don’t even know who won!
I said it before, but I really was surprised at how different all of the pies tasted. There is a simple apple pie recipe that has been passed through generations in my family. In my humble (yet very biased) opinion, it is the best apple pie ever. So I thought I’d share it with you.
Start with your favorite pie crust recipe. I make a butter crust, but I have tasted some delicious crisco and oil based crusts as well. You’ll need a double crust. I’ve had success with this recipe but you’ll need to double it to get two crusts. Place one crust in a 9inch pie plate.
Anyway, on to the important part, the pie filling.
Ingredients:
6-7 baking apples (My grandma loves using Pippins, but I can’t seem to find them where I live. If you don’t have a variety of apple choices, Granny Smiths should do the trick)
1 cup sugar
1-2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/3 cup flour
Slice, core, and peel the apples. A great trick to doing this quickly is to use one of those apple slicer thingys. Mix together the sugar, cinnamon and flour and add the sliced and peeled apples. Pour into the pie plate. Roll out the second crust and place it on top of the pie, pushing the sides of both crusts together. Cut three slits in the center of the pie. Brush the top of the pie with milk and sprinkle sugar. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes. The pie is done when it is bubbling over slightly. Serve warm….add vanilla ice cream if you want!
If you decide to try the recipe, let me know how it works for you!
On to real work….
-jenny