Adventures in Baking

Now that my crazy, hectic school year is over, it's time to unwind and start checking things off my very long to-do list.  Summer is a time when I put all the pins that I've been hoarding into effect!  The first thing on my list (ok, not the first but it got bumped up a few pegs as per hubby's request) was to bake an apple pie.  I had several apples from a recent excursion to Sams Club that needed to be used up, and it just so happened to be Father's Day.  And let's face it, there's nothing more Norman Rockwell than baking an apple pie for the man you love, while two small children scamper about your feet on a summers eve.  Right.

After searching the web for the perfect apple pie recipe, I decided to save myself some angst on this first go around and purchased a ready made pie crust.  I then found this recipe for apple pie filling from Paula Deen Paula's Apple Pie Filling Recipe : Paula Deen : Recipes : Food Network

I Paula's desserts always look amazing, so I figured it would be a safe bet.

Ingredients
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
Freshly ground nutmeg, to taste
7 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1 lemon, zested and juiced

Directions

3 tablespoons butter, diced
Egg wash, for brushing
Sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Mix together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. In another bowl, sprinkle apples with the juice of 1 lemon and toss. Stir in the sugar mixture to evenly coat the apples.

Set aside. Roll out chilled dough into 2 circles and use 1 round to line a 9-inch pie pan. Chill the other round.

Mound the apple and sugar mixture into the pie pan lined with dough. Dot with the cubed butter.

Using a pastry cutter, cut an even number of strips from the remaining rolled out dough. Transfer every other strip to the pie top and weave in the lattice by folding every other strip back onto itself and laying another strip perpendicularly. Fold the strips back across and repeat until completed.

Brush the top of the pie with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Trim the overhanging dough and crimp edges.

Bake pie for 45 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before slicing.

Peel and core the apples

Toss with lemon

Mix sugar, cinnamon, flour, and nutmeg

Coat apples

Mound into pie dish

Top with remaining crust

Bake and enjoy!

*note- due to my sons egg allergy I did not brush the crust with egg.  Also, I recommend baking on a cookie sheet incase any bubbles over (which it did!).