Bye, Bye Ms. American Pie
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, I think we can all agree that some good old fashioned “comfort food” is in order.. and why not some easy-peasy apple pie to make while watching the election night results roll in? (Especially since we are into apple season…)
Something I firmly believe is that you can make ornate, beautiful things in short and quick ways.. One of my favorite #lifehacks is Pilsbury or Betty Crocker pie crusts. They come two to a pack, and are lifesaving (especially around the holidays)!
I use the pre-made pie crusts when I’m feeling that pie, but not the time or energy of a crust from scratch.
As you will see, I still did a neat decoration and colored it to provide some comfort (please drink responsibly with a bottle of champagne!) during this election!
Ingredients:
Crust:
2 pre-made pie crusts (my brands of choice are Pilsbury and Betty Crocker)
Filling:
6 cups thinly sliced and peeled apples (an apple slicing device has transformed my apple game for the better)
¾ cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of salt
1/8 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
For Decoration:
1 large egg
A sprinkle of salt
Red and Blue food coloring
Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place one of the pie crusts in an ungreased 9-inch glass pie dish. Press firmly against the side and bottom. Set aside other pie crust
3. Crimp the edges (as shown below) to add decoration, you do this by pinching the dough about a finger distance apart from each crimp.
4. In a large bowl, mix all of the remaining ingredients (minus the other pie crust). Spoon seasoned apples into the prepared pie crust.
5. Roll out second pie crust into a clean surface, I love my silicone sheet (because less cleanup). Then take three sizes of star-shaped cookie cutters and begin cutting out shapes. Larger ones are better because they will burn less quickly than your smaller stars. As you can see, I used a base of 4 large stars and then spaced out the remaining ones on top. Roughly 14 stars in total.
6. You then need to prepare an “egg wash” which will keep your shapes from burning and will help give them a nice shine! I used a whole egg and a sprinkle of salt. I then divided the egg wash into two parts and added red to one and blue to the other. I do not have a brush, so instead used a spatula to spread the color evenly.
7. I then covered the exposed apples in stars, and threw it into my oven at 425 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. I checked in on it at 15 minutes to make sure it wasn’t browning.. As I have a less sophisticated oven (aka, a dial and have to watch the temperature), I was able to keep it uncovered for most of the baking, as it browned slowly. I covered it at 30 minutes with foil. But you should check it at 15 minutes, and if it’s beginning to brown cover it with aluminum foil!
8. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 2 hours.
9. Then, serve to your friends and neighbors, because in this election... We can all use a little more love! <3
