Heavenly (and Easy!) Apple Crumble Pie

Who doesn't love apple pie? This recipe is the great equalizer; it is impressive and flavorful, yet easy enough for a guy in college to make for his homecoming date. As much as I love to cook, I'm no Rachel Ray, stumping for the camera while explaining step-by-step how to make a dish. It's my own private affair; I disappear into the kitchen, and no one is the wiser until I present them with a plated offering. However, when I was in the final weeks of pregnancy with my first child, our good friends Jim and Paula came to lunch. Jim is a fabulous, elegant and daring chef, and while that may have intimidated me, at the very last minute I decided to make an apple pie for our dessert (there is no accounting for pregnant women and their cravings!) As my husband and I chatted amiably with our friends, I stood at the counter casually making the crust from scratch while Paula helped peel the apples. The pie bubbled and baked as we ate our lunch, and---served piping hot from the oven---was positively heavenly. Could I have a future on Food Network? As long as I'm cooking for friends! For best results, use a mix of Granny Smith apples with your favorite variety. Click here for the advice on choosing the best cooking apples.

Make one (9 inch) home-made pie crust
1 cup flour (you can use all-purpose, but I prefer whole-grain pastry flour)
6 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons cold water.

Blend all ingredients and press evenly into a 9-inch pie pan. Prick bottom of crust with a fork. Bake at 375 degrees F for 12-15 minutes.

Pie filling
Preheat over to 400 degrees F.
5 cups apples, peeled, thinly sliced and cored
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

In a medium-size bowl, mix all ingredients except apples. Arrange sliced apples in the cooked pie crust in spiraling layers, alternating layers with the sugar and spice mixture.

Crumbly topping
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour (use all-purpose or whole-grain pastry flour)
3 tablespoons butter

Mash these three ingredients together in a bowl. Spoon this loose, crumbly mixture over the top of the pie, and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until apples are soft and top is lightly browned. Serves 6-8.

Food Fact! Apple pie has an intriguing history. According to What's Cooking America, apple pies or tarts have shown up, in one form or another, since the Middle Ages. As early as 1381, apple pie didn't contain sugar and the pastry (referred to as a "coffyn") was generally not meant to be eaten. Sugar was very scarce and extremely expensive. Naturally, when sugar became more readily available in the sixteenth century, the crust was then intended for eating. A mid-sixteenth-century cookbook describes an apple pie recipe as follows: "To make pyes of grene apples, take your apples and pare them cleane and core them as ye wyll a Quince, then make youre coffyn after this maner, take a lyttle fayre water and half a dyche of butter and a little Saffron, and sette all this upon a chafyngdyshe tyll it be hoate then temper your flower with this sayd licuor, and the whyte of two egges and also make your coffyn and ceason your apples with Sinemone, Gynger and Suger ynoughe. Then putte them into your coffyn and laye halfe a dyshe of butter above them and so close your coffyn, and so bake them." When I read this, I imagine both my Scottish pastor's accent, and Captain Jack Sparrow---as ye wyll ynoughe.

(Check out my recipe for Autumn Harvest Raw Apple Pie!)