The thought that anyone wouldn’t be a “cake person” never crossed my mind until I met Bill.
Who doesn’t love cake and look forward finding any opportunity to partake in a piece?! I mean, isn’t that the whole reason why I’m shooting for a dozen kids? Sure, things got messed up a bit what with having birthday twins, but the whole plan was to have a reason for a birthday cake a month. February, July, August, and November are needing filled for sure! And, thanks to Bill, October.
For Bill is a Pie Guy and will take no other than an apple one when his day rolls around.
Thankfully for him, long, long ago when I was 17 I felt like making a pie. An apple pie to be specific. For I had never had one in my life. And since I knew I liked apples and pie crust and cinnamon, I figured, “How bad could it be?”
It was love at first bite and I never looked back. Good thing for the man-boy I would marry a year later.
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And now a word on apples.
I’m extremely finicky about which apples I put in my pie. Maybe, you have your own favorite, but mine in Jonagold. In an extreme pinch, I’ll use Jonathan’s or Golden Delicious, or even a mix of the two. But experiment though I often do, Jonagold has yet to meet its equal. At least so says my palette. They are the perfect blend of sweet & tart, allowing me to skip any sweetener in the filling. Not to mention they don’t turn to mush, but keep a nice texture giving you something to bite into.
And now a word on the streusel topping.
Try as I might, I can’t make this play nicely with sucanat. I mean, it’s alright, and for us I’ll probably keep using it, but if I’m aiming to impress I just use brown sugar. If you choose, toss in some chopped nuts. I like pecans best. They’re sweet. Or toss in some rolled oats, or a mix of the two. You’re aiming for a texture where the topping can’t fully come together into a ball when you squeeze it, but isn’t dry and fully crumbly either. You’re looking for balance. Normally, I skip both however. Not because I don’t like them, but because Apple Pie Guy is also No Nuts In Baked Goods Guy. Which I think means he’s a communist.
And now for our favorite apple pie recipe.
Homemade Apple Pie with Pecan Streusel Topping
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Our Favorite Apple Pie with Streusel Topping
Ingredients
For the Filling
- unbaked pie crust This is my recipe for a flaky pie crust
- 8–10 Jonagold apples, peeled, cored, sliced
- ¼ cup flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (make it generous)
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
For the Streusel Topping
- ½ cup flour
- ¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon ginger
- 6 Tablespoons butter, cut into pats
- 1 cup pecans, chopped or I bet rolled oats would be good (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
- Prepare your pie crust and then pop into the refrigerator to keep it chilled while your work on the topping and the filling.
- Make the topping first so your apples don’t brown up while you’re doing it later (especially if you forget or ran out of lemon juice but want pie anyway. ahem.)
- Combine the flour, brown sugar, and spices in a bowl.
- Cut in the butter using your fingers until its crumbly.
- Stir in the nuts if you’ll be using them.
- To make the filling, toss the peeled, cored, and sliced apples in a bowl with the lemon juice.
- Sprinkle with the spices and flour and give it a good, gentle stirring.
- Arrange the sliced apples in the pie dish.
- Crumble the streusel topping over the apple slices.
- Bake for 15 minutes
- Reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 45 minutes until the apples can be pierced with a knife but before they are mushy.
- Cool for as long as you can handle it. You don’t want to burn your mouth, but warm enough so your ice cream will melt into it and soak into the flaky crust.
Enjoy!
This sounds delicious. But maybe I need to pray for your husband… not like cake?????? no nuts in baked goods????? 😉
Thankfully, he does still like a good donut so there’s no need to have him committed yet, but if your prayers go unanswered, we might have to resort to that.
Oh me oh my. I need some of that right now. How can I make that pie without my 5 year old daughter noticing? Because of her eczema, we’re trying to cut out all gluten grains… but Mama needs some pie!!
Oh I’ve got this one for you… we were talking the other night and Bill said he could go for an apple crisp. Now in my opinion that was crazy talk. I told him if he wanted an apple crisp to scrape out the filling and the topping and then give ME his crust! So there you go. Double the recipe. One goes into a pie plate *with* a crust. One goes into a pie plate *without* a crust. I imagine the bit of flour in the filling could easily be substituted out for a gluten-free one. I don’t really know much about them, but it’s working in there to thicken and gel up the juices a bit. Kind of like the flour or cornstarch in gravy. Maybe even arrowroot powder? At any rate, I hope you figure out how to get you some pie!!
That was a brilliant idea. And I pulled it off. I told the children I was making apple crisp, which I did, but I managed to run inside the house while they were playing in the sandbox, and quickly make a crust for the pie. (I felt a bit like Duchess in The Pie and the Patty Pan.) Then we ate a picnic supper, and by the time we got to dessert it was dark, and as we ate around a fire in the fire pit, no one could see what was in anyone else’s bowl, and so Hannah and Silas enjoyed their apple crisp, blissfully unaware that Daddy and Mama were eating pie.
And it was SO good. Thanks for the recipe, and thanks for the idea 🙂
You’re one sneaky mama! 😉 I’m so glad it worked out for you and that you liked the pie! We had it again tonight and we all thought someone else was going to bring the leftovers in and the dog ate the rest!!! Had to practice some self control not to cry.
warm apple pie in a bowl of milk….anyone recognize that?
that is my most favorite way in the whole world to eat apple pie… I thought my family were the only ones 🙂
I’ve never heard of that, though it sounds wonderful! Now, the cheddar cheese, I’ll never understand.
Quinn, I like that you’ve merged the two sites again. I never look at food only blogs, but I like getting some food in-between.
On apples, I think my favourite is Ingrid Marie and I wonder if what you call Jonagold is the sort we call jonagored in Danish, if that’s the case you’ve hit my second favourite apple. I have a love-hate relationship with Golden Delicious, the ones from the store I hate – all water, no taste and loads of allergy inducers! But find me a back yard tree and I’ll be a happy camper sitting under it and waiting for an apple to fall into my hands, so I can munch it before anyone else gets to them…
I’ve never understood the ice-cream with pie, but then again I don’t understand my dad eating whipped cream with it either. I love my pies with creme fraiche. nom nom, and now I’m hungry after pies, or possibly cake…
The ones from the store are always so awful and bland compared to a fresh apple, you’re right. Nothing compares!!
Here is my positive review. Thank you I am making this pie in about an hour.