CRUMBED APPLE PIE (a/k/a DUTCH APPLE PIE) (a/k/a FRENCH APPLE PIE) 4 FEBRUARY 2023
As it's coldish this morning, it seemed a good time to make an apple pie . . . I had asked Taste Tester #1 to bring home six MacIntosh apples. They weren't available singly (stuck on a boat from China?), so he brought home a bag of them. HOW MANY PIES COULD I MAKE??? I decided that I would peel 'em all, mix the slices in the flour/sugar mixture, and then freeze a pie-worth of slices in a ZipLoc® bag. I could then take one out as needed, make the crumb mixture, and bob's your uncle, easy peasy apple pie. Problem solved. I looked online and one cup of apple slices equals 175 grams, so six cups would be 1050 grams. I was ready for this! Peeling station . . . What great strides technology has taken! Years ago, in a lifetime far, far away, my Mother & I decided to make TEN apple pies; I would make the crusts (!!), the mixture and the crumb topping, while she would peel & slice the apples. With a knife. By hand. (These pies can be put together, then frozen, and just baked as is.) How much easier & faster the job would've been with one of these, and the corer/cutter or just the corer (the stick thing; Neal figured out that it was to core an apple WITHOUT cutting it, then the plunging thingie pushes out the core. Genius. Once upon a time, it was believed that if a girl peeled an apple in one strip, then tossed it over her shoulder, the peel would form the initial of her future husband. I can imagine some poor girl using this peeler to peel dozens of apples . . . If it weren't for the fear of attracting rats, I'd've thrown all the apple peels and cores outside for the opossums & raccoons, but no can do. (I had to give up feeding birds for the same reason; I REALLY miss doing that.) I cored the apples with this, at the time not knowing if I want to cut the apples into halves, I should use the other corer. Next time.
Next, another piece of great technology, even if it IS over 40 years old. This machine still slices, dices and mixes just fine.
Mixing station . . . . . . at which point I found that the two-pound bag of apples, by the time the soft spots had been cut out, only totaled . . . . . . wait for it . . . . . . 547 grams. NOT even enough for ONE pie, let alone EXTRAS! Remembering what happened the LAST time I "went to the store" to get something, Neal offered to go back to the store for more apples, but I judged that this apple mixture was just enough to fill one pie crust. I'm not proud; I admit I use pre-made crusts. The time, the mess . . . needed to make crusts from scratch and then clean up afterward . . . aren't worth it. These frozen crusts resist getting soggy for several days, unlike the crusts I used to make, and these are deep-dish crusts, which I prefer but I haven't the pie pans for those. I was right; there was just enough to fill the deep dish pie pan . . . And now for the crumb topping, using a pastry cutter. I forgot to take the butter out of the fridge, but I had 1/4 cup that I cut into small pieces and used the 1/4 cup softened butter Neal had out for our morning toast. ACTION PICTURES! . . . This is the texture of the crumb topping . . . Into the oven . . . The end result . . . THE RECIPE I USED
A LESSON WE LEARNED: NEVER USE BAGGED APPLES; ALWAYS PICK OUT GOOD, LARGE APPLES SINGLY.



NO-BAKE PUMPKIN MOUSSE PIE HERE