Good Ol' American Pie II

To continue the previous post...

4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

5. Heat ½ c butter, flour, ¼ c water, and ½ c brown sugar. Bring to a boil and simmer until it thickens up a little. Pour over the apple filling carefully.

 6. Now onto the topping. Mix the flour, oats, sugar, and nutmeg in a b owl. Drizzle melted butter over the top and stir until it all becomes moist, or almost all of it does. Spread evenly on top of the pie so it covers all of the apples so they don’t burn.

 7. Bake in 425 degree F oven for 15 minutes. Then turn down the heat to 350 degrees F and bake for another 30-45 minutes. Enjoy!

Pie Crust

-          ½ lb (2 sticks) margarine or butter (I used unsalted)

-          2 ¼ c flour (I used all purpose)

-          6 tbsp cold water

-          ½ tsp salt

1.      Mix the flour well with the salt.

2.      Cut the butter/margarine and flour together with a pastry blender, or cut the butter into pea size chunks. Gently mix into the flour with two forks in a fluffing motion.

3.      Sprinkle cold water over the top of the flour mixture, a tablespoon or two at first. Toss this top layer lightly with a fork until large lumps of dough form. Push these aside and sprinkle more water on top, repeat until all is moist.

4.      Gather the lumps of dough together into a loose ball. It shouldn’t be too sticky, but if it’s hard to handle flour hands. Handle with a light touch and DON’T KNEAD IT! Lightly pat the dough with the heel of your hand until you have a smooth ball. Dough that’s handled too much gets tough so be easy on it! Your hand’s heat will start making the butter soft.

5.      Wrap and chill the dough for 30+ minutes.

6.      Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

7.      Flour the work surface then cut the dough into two pieces. Shape each piece into a hamburger with smooth edges. Keep the work surface lightly floured.

8.      Roll the dough from the center out in a clockwise direction, lifting the rolling pin as you reach the edges. This keeps the dough evenly round and prevents the edges from getting thinner than the center.

9.      Fold the dough into quarters carefully, making it easy to lift without tearing. Place the corner into the center of pan and unfold.

10.  Bake pie crust if necessary for 20-24 minutes in the preheated oven. (Not all pies will require an already baked crust.) Pull out and let cool.

It smelled so good while it was baking I had my mouth watering. By time David got home I was practically chomping at the bit to dig in. So after David got home and we ate dinner I went ahead and served it up. In David’s words, “That is fantastic pie.” How can I argue with that? Which made me think of this fact I found when I googled Apple Pie’s history:

In 1590 Robert Green (1558-1592), an English poet, said he could

think of no greater compliment in praise of a lovely lady. He wrote

the following in his prose called Arcadia, "They breath is like the

steame of apple-pyes."

So I am certainly not the first or only person to love this fruit. Now that I was curious, I was intrigued to find out  more about apples history. A quick search on Google.com told me that the remains of apples are found among excavations at Jericho in the Jordan Valley and are dated to 6,500 B.C. Then dried apple slices were found on saucers in the tomb of Queen Pu-Abi at Ur near Basara, in Southern Iran, linking royalty to the irresistible seduction of apples which was dated to 2500 B.C. And finally in 384-322 B.C. Aristotle was said to have kept death away by holding an apple and inhaling its life sustaining fragrance. Finally and consciously he drops the apple thus releasing his soul. Wow, interesting stuff.