Apple Pie with Homemade Pie Crust

My sister and I share the same occupation, medical transcription out of home. In fact, we work for the same company. She had her baby two weeks ago, so I agreed to help her out by covering her workload so she could enjoy some time with her baby. Today marks the first day that I am 100% back to my normal work schedule and caught up with everything (yippee!), so I thought I would celebrate. Being that President's Day is just around the corner, I decided on a very American-esque food, apple pie! My daughter had a piece, closed her eyes and told me that "we should have this for every meal for the rest of our lives". lol It's pretty darn good if I should say so myself.

Ingredients:

Printable Recipe

Pie Crust

• 2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
  
• 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 c unsalted butter, chilled
  
• 1/4 c plus 2 tbsp to 1/2 c ice water
• 2 tbsp milk (or egg wash), for brushing on crust
• 1/2 tbsp sugar, for sprinkling on crust

Apple Pie Filling

• 7 apples, peeled and thinly sliced (I use 4 Granny Smith and 3 Braeburn)
• 3/4 c white sugar
  
• 1/4 c brown sugar
  
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
  
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (I omitted this as I was out of lemons)

Directions:

Make the pie crust. Add the flour, salt and sugar into a food processor and cut in the butter. Pulse until the mixture forms small crumbs. Add the water starting at 1/4 c plus 2 tbsp and add as needed up to 1/2 c for the dough to be able to be gathered into a ball. Separate the dough in half and form each half into a disc. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour. (Sometimes, I skip the refrigeration step and get straight to working)

Between lightly floured parchment sheets, roll one of the dough discs out and place it in a lightly greased pie plate. Press the dough firmly into the pie plate. Roll out the second dough disc in the same manner and set it aside.

Make the filling. In a large bowl, add the apple slices, white sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and lemon juice. Toss to combine well.

Pour the filling into the bottom pie shell and lay the top pie shell over the filling. Cut slits into the dough for ventilation or take your time to be creative with the crust (I had visions of making an American flag-type crust with stripes and stars but ran out of time and had to start prepping for dinner).

Brush milk or egg wash evenly over the dough and sprinkle with sugar. Place foil over the edges of the pie crust. Bake in the lowest part of the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

Turn down the heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 35 to 45 minutes. During the last 15 minutes, remove the foil from the edges to allow the edges to brown.

Remove the pie from the oven when the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Allow the pie to cool on a wire rack for at least 4 hours to allow the filling to set. Do not skip the cooling step or your pie will be runny. To speed up the cooling process a bit, after 2 hours of cooling on a wire rack, place the pie in the fridge.

Enjoy!