Fall leaves, cool crisp sunny days and Apple Pie!

Today, as I write this, it is a beautiful autum day. The sun is out, its not quite 70 degrees and you can just smell the fall air so fresh. I love country living. It is days like this that remind me that city life cannot compare. We may not have the convenience of stores, malls or restaurants, but it is a day like this that reminds me that they aren't important. Having to drive an hour to get to a good shopping town is worth it for what I have here!

Grumpy has been outside most of the day working on the shed. While I have been doing laundry and hanging it out to dry on the line since I still can. I have also been baking.

We have company coming tonight for dinner. A perfect occasion for me to make an apple pie with those apples my mom and dad gave me. I used for the very first time my ceramic pie bird, and I even decorated the pie with fall leaves! I had enough apples to make two pies, so the second one I placed in the freezer unbaked so I have one ready to bake when the mood hits!

I really love Dorie's Good for Almost Anything Pie Crust, but this time I decided to go ahead with Butter Flavor Crisco because my experience with Dorie's crust with a pie has been that it melts. It works better with something like the Summer Fruit Galette.

Fall Apple Pie

Pie Crust:
(Classic Crisco recipe)
This will make a double crust 9" pie

2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup well chilled Crisco Butter Flavor Shortening
(I use the Crisco Sticks - and use 3/4 stick)
4-8 Tablespoons ice cold water

Blend flour and salt in mixing bowl. Cut chilled shortening into cubes into flour mixture using pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs with pea sized pieces remaining.

Sprinkle 4 Tablespoons of water over mixture and stir with a fork. Add more water by the Tablespoon until dough holds together. It takes about 6-8 Tablespoons for me.

Divide dough in two with one ball slightly larger than the other. At this point, I place back in my mixing bowl (both balls of dough) covered with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. Remove dough from refrigerator and place larger ball of dough onto floured surface. Using floured rolling pin roll dough into a circle until about 2" wider than the pie plate. Ease bottom crust into pie plate and trim evenly around plate. Fill with pie filling (recipe will follow). Roll top pie crust, lift onto filled pie. Trim dough with 3/4" overhand; fold top edge under bottom crust. Press edges together and flute. Cut slits in top crust.

I wanted to be a little bit "fancy" so cut out fall leaves to decorate the pie in honor of our beautiful fall day. All I was missing was my sugar crystals which I could not locate!

Apple Pie Filling:

8 cups sliced apples (This was 6 large apples for me)
1 cup splenda or regular granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice

Pre-heat oven to375 degrees. Place apples in large bowl. Stir sugar, spices, cornstarch, and lemon juice into apples. Pour apple filling into bottom pie crust. Dot with 1 tablespoon butter (break butter into small pieces all over top of pie filling) and cover with top pie crust. Crimp edges. I normally cover the crust with tinfoil the first 40 minutes of baking, remove foil and continue to bake for 20 minutes more.

Serve with homemade whipped topping ;-)