Apple Pie

I hope you've all awakened from your food comas.

I've never baked a pie before, I've only helped. I can be pretty handy with deserts so it kind of bothered me that I've never baked a pie before. So of course I chose the day before Thanksgiving to undertake this task. The plan was to bake the pie and then the next day take it to The Beef's father's house for Thanksgiving. I had a back up plan though, my mother baked a pumpkin pie for us so there was already a perfectly delicious pie on deck ready go if I should fail my first pie making mission.

I picked an apple pie recipe my mother got from my grandmother and used to make when I was younger, I remember really liking it so I figured why not.

So here you go: Button's Grandmother's Sour Cream Apple Pie

You will need:

1 unbaked 9" pie crust

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

6 Tbsp flour divided  2/4

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

3 cups chopped peeled granny smith apples

3 Tbsp melted butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

Ta da!

Preheat the oven to 375.

Since I went to the grocery store the day before Thanksgiving they were out of frozen pie shells. So I went for the box of make it yourself pie crust. I chose the no bake no roll method which meant I put some water in with the powder, mushed it around rolled it into a giant ball, plopped it into my pie place and mashed at it with my fingers until it was even and covered everything. 

I'm too OCD for a task like this and I will be stocking up on premade pie shells in the future...

Next comes peeling and chopping 3 cups of apples which in my case came out to 3 apples. It was at the moment that I took the above picture that I remembered how much I hate this. I spent a lot of the fall making applesauce and while it was delicious it took pounds and pounds of apples that I chopped and peeled for hours. Even just doing 3 apples was way too much for my sanity. Applesauce PTSD. 

So I moved onto happier things, like combining eggs and sour cream. 

After that I added in the sugar, 2 Tbsp flour, vanilla and salt. After I mixed the hell out of it I threw the apples in.

 I can't even begin to tell you the stress I felt over figuring out how big or small to cut these apple slices.  I'd rather take the SATs again. 

 I poured everything into the pie plate and prayed to the god of holiday baking that the filling wouldn't come up past the top of the crust.

I placed it all gently in the oven and let it bake for 15 minutes. While it was baking I combined the melted butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 4 Tbsp of flour in a bowl. After the 15 minutes were up I sprinkled the mixture over the top of the pie. 

Now the recipe says to let it bake for 20-25 minutes or until the filling is set. 

At 20 minutes it was not set. At 25 minutes it still was not set, so I kept it in there at five minute intervals as I frantically dialed every phone number I could think of that might reach my mother so I could get some kind of intel on what exactly the set filling might look like. I finally got a hold of her at 40 minutes in the oven and we decided that the pie was set so I took it out.

The next step is letting it cool completely on a wire rack and then keeping it in the fridge covered with clear wrap until you feel like eating it. 

I went to work and kept freaking out over the status of the pie and finally wimped out and decided to just keep the pie at home for us to test and bring my mother's pumpkin pie to the gathering instead. 

Well, I had decided on this until I got a phone call from my mother telling me she'd had a mishap with the pumpkin pies and though she was sure they would taste fine they did not look pretty. 

So there I was, stuck with my very first pie. I got a tension headache thinking about it but it turned out to be all over nothing because the pie was a success and everyone but The Beef (who hates anything different) seemed to really enjoy it. I will be making this again.