Recipe of the Day — French Apple Pie

***updated with photos 11/24/07

Actually, this was originally going to be the recipe of the day on Christmas because I bought some lovely Braeburn apples to make a pie. I love having either apple or cherry pie with ham and I usually only make a ham two or three times in a year — Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas — and since I usually only make pie at Thanksgiving and sometimes at Christmas, it’s a limited time offer. But my very kind Secret Santa from my college alum group sent me a wonderful basket full of chocolates of all sorts, including my favorite which is similar to this. Why are Belgian chocolates so often in the shape of seashells and fish? I haven’t figured that one out yet.

Anyway, the point was I have lots of desserts and some Christmas cookies left hanging around, I didn’t need the temptation of apple pie as well. Instead, we’re just slicing those yummy Braeburn apples and eating them for snacks. And, yes, Braeburn apples are my new favorites for pie b/c of their flavor and texture. I have recently found Honeycrisp apples for excellent eating but they are way expensive — $2-3/lb when others are ranging around $0.88-1.50/lb — and I haven’t tried to bake with them yet. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of pie crust so I love this crumb topping. This is similar to the Betty Crocker recipe with a few changes — this is for a 10-inch deep dish pie so you may need to pare down the sizes (6 c of apple for a 9 inch) for smaller dishes.

French Apple Pie

3/4 c. sugar 1/3 c. flour 1 t. nutmeg 1 t. cinnamon 1/4 t. mace 1 T. lemon juice approximately 8 cups thinly sliced pared tart apples Crumb Topping (see below)

Stir together dry ingredients and mix in apples and lemon juice. Turn into pastry lined pie pan; top with Crumb Topping. Bake 50 minutes at 425 F; cover topping with aluminum foil if top browns too quickly.

Crumb Topping: 1 c. flour ½ c. firm butter or margarine ½ c. packed brown sugar ½ t. cinnamon

Mix together until crumbly.

I’m something of a fraud for giving you this recipe, though — I don’t measure this stuff!!! I slice my apples into a bowl with some lemon juice squirted in, scoop sugar on top until it looks good, sprinkle cinnamon, nutmeg and mace on top until it looks and smells right, stir in the flour until the apples are well coated and turn out in the pastry. So if you make this pie and it doesn’t taste like mine, it’s b/c my ‘measuring devices’ are non-standard! 😉