Whenever I go hiking, I think about pies.
Why?
It might be because when I decidedly burn calories, I feel extra worthy of something solidly delicious, and potentially complicated to make.
And that something is usually a pie.
Well it turns out pies are not that complicated to make, even though the texture of a pie has way more complexity than some of the other harder-to-make desserts.
You can always start a pie with store-bought pie crust. But as I feel extra worthy today, I'm gonna try making my own.
Luckily, one of my favorite food channel Tasty has already figured out how to make the perfect pie without having to swear and have a total melt-down during the process ( that never happened in my house). Trust me, give it a try! It's worth it!
Here is how to make the Pie Crust following Tasty's recipe.
Now the pie filling. A friend recently brought me a dozen of apples from her mother's own backyard. So why not make some apple pies! Again, you can simply follow Tasty's Apple Pie recipe. I've adopted their way of macerating apples. However, when it comes to the topping, I've decided to use the one in our family's favorite Apple Crisp. It adds more texture to the apple pie, and is arguably healthier than the double crusted pie.
The following is how to make the apple crisp pie.
Ingredients:
Apple filling (adapted from Tasty's recipe)
5 lb apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
¼ teaspoon fine salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
⅓ cup fresh lemon juice
3 ½ tablespoons cornstarch, divided
3 tablespoons water
3 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter
Pie Crust
1 premade pie crust, rolled out into ⅛-inch (3-mm) thick
egg wash
Topping
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup vegetable oil or canola oil
4 tablespoons pastry flour or all purpose flour
4 tablespoons brown sugar
Steps:
1. Follow Tasty's recipe to prepare macerated apple filling as the following:
Peel and thinly slice the apples; keep the apples in a bowl of lemon water as you go to keep them from browning;
In a large bowl, toss the apples with the brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, lemon juice, and half of the cornstarch. Once the apples are well coated, let sit and macerate for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Transfer the apples to a colander set over a medium bowl and let drain for about 15 minutes, until all of the liquid is drawn out.
Transfer the liquid released from the apples to a small pot over low heat. In a small bowl, mix the rest of the cornstarch and the water to make a slurry. Add the slurry to the apple liquid and quickly stir to incorporate. Bring to a boil, then add the butter and stir until melted. Immediately remove from the heat and pour over the apples, stirring to coat.
2. Preheat the oven to 375˚F
3. Gently lay 1 rolled-out pie crust in a 10-inch (25-cm) pie dish. Lay the apples in the pie crust, making sure they are flat in order to fit as many apples as possible in the crust. Pour any leftover liquid from the bowl over the apples.
4. Mix oil, oats, flour, and brown sugar in a large bowl, cover the apples with the oats mixture.
5. Brush egg wash on the exposed pie crust, bake the pie for 50~60 minutes.
6. Let it cool down, slice and serve!
