Brown Sugar Mixed Apple Pie

Mmmm apple pie

I learned how to make apple pie because my mom promised a friend she would make him a homemade apple pie. She had never made one before and decided I should make it instead!!! Mom's.. gotta love them!! She does that all the time, she wants something new and guess who gets to find a recipe and make it? But I always take it as a compliment that she trusts me to do as good a job as she would. Because we all know no one cooks as good as our mothers, unless it's our grandmother. Hope you will enjoy my version of apple pie. I decided to not go with traditional Granny Smith apples but to make use of all the different flavors and textures apples have to offer. There are so many to choose from...from crisp to soft in texture. To sweet and tart in flavor. I like having the crisp and tart flavor of the Granny Smiths so half the apples I use are Granny Smiths. The other half I use 4 to 6 different apples, no two the same. I like the McIntosh for its tart flavor yet cooks to a very soft apple. I love the Jazz apples very crisp sweet and juicy. I also like the Pink Lady crisp sweet but a little tart too. The Honey Crisp are as their name suggests sweet and crisp. There are so many to choose from. 

INGREDIENTS:

2 pie crusts, unbaked
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
6 cups thinly sliced apples (I use 4 to 5 Granny Smiths then 5 to 6 mixed sweet apple varieties)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp butter
1 beaten egg yolk
1 Tbsp water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. In large bowl, mix sugars, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
3. Pour lemon juice over apple slices toss gently.
4. Add apples to sugar and spices toss lightly to coat apples.
5. Turn apple mixture into pie crust lined pie plate. Pile apples high.
6. Cut butter into small pieces and place around top of apples.
7. Put second pie crust on top of apples.
8. Press edges together to seal crusts.
9. Cut slits in top of pie crust to vent.
10. Mix yolk with water and brush top of pie crust.
11. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until apples are tender and crust is golden brown.
12. Cover edges of pie to keep from over browning, remove last 15 minutes.

This is a very tender nicely sweet pie

This was the first time I ever made a fruit pie. The hardest part is coring and peeling all those apples. If you have kids old enough to help this would be a good job for them. Just hand them a peeler and let them go at it! As always try it my way then change it and make it your own. I changed the apples by adding the sweeter ones. I don't like my apple pie with crunchy apples, I like them tender to soft. By adding the other apples I got what I wanted. I also added a lot more apples than the 6 cups which gave me a very tall full pie! Yummy! The recipe called for grated lemon rind, I changed it to juice and used the bottled version, worked great and cut down my prep time and expense. I always have lemon and lime juice as part of my staples.  My mom's friend just raved about how good it was! Yahoo!! He liked it so well I sent the rest of the pie home with him. It's always nice to see people enjoy the fruit of your labor, so to speak! I have found there is nothing you can't cook if you have a basic recipe or a pretty good idea what the base ingredients are. I have people ask me all the time to taste things and tell them whats in it. But if you like something at a restaurant and want to recreate it at home do so!! I do it all the time. Now a days with computers you can Google anything. I do recipes from restaurants all the time. Most times they are other persons versions, so I just take the basic idea and build from that. I usually have a good idea of what is in the recipe just by tasting it. I just go for it...usually mine ends up tasting better than the original. Just put all tools available to you to work for you. If you never try you never learn! Somewhere way back when someone had to think; if I put this with this and add a little of this... How all things were created, from someone's imagination, and idea that formed and took shape in their mind. Then they worked on it until they had what they were trying to create. Sometimes we stumble onto something even better than we imagined! The point is to try! Cook with love and you can't go wrong! If you do. oh well, improve it next time. Just never give up, sometimes it pays to be stubborn..why I never quit...to stubborn!! Janie's philosophy :)