Hearty Apple Pie for Valentine's Day

Chad and I decided this year that, with me being busy with school 90% of the time now, and with upcoming wedding expenses, that neither one of us would buy each other Valentine's gifts this year. Plus, wasn't Christmas, like, just a few weeks ago? Anyway, I decided just to ask him what he wanted me to cook for him for dinner, to which he obviously responded, "Barbecue chicken and garlic mashed potatoes," without a second of hesitation. I also wanted to make something special for dessert, so I decided to make an apple pie.

Now, I've never made any kind of pie before, in all of the five years that I have been baking. I have always been weirdly intimidated by the thought of making a pie, but I recently read Labor Day by Joyce Maynard, and in that novel, the main character learns to make pies from a (wrongly) convicted felon. The way they talked about making pies made me really hungry, and also really inspired to try to make one of my own. So, I took to Pinterest, obviously, to get some ideas. I saw a really adorable strawberry pie with heart-shaped dough cutouts baked on top over at RecipeBest.com, and I decided that I definitely wanted to use that idea in my own creation. But, being stubborn the way that I tend to be when it comes to baking, I knew that I did not want to use a store-bought pie crust. I don't know what it is about things like store-bought pie crusts and store-bought pasta sauces, but I really hate to use them. Not all of them are bad, and some of them are probably a lot better than what I can do myself, but I just enjoy so very much to be able to look at something and think to myself, "I made that."

Granted, since this was my first attempt at making a pie, there were some hiccups along the way, and my mom taught me a trick for how to not burn the edges of a pie crust that I do plan on remembering next time. I used Paula Deen's recipe for the crust, substituting lard for vegetable shortening, and then used her recipe for the filling as a guideline, and then branched out a little bit from it.

Apple Pie Filling

• 9 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced fairly thin
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
• nutmeg, to taste
• ground cloves, to taste
• egg wash
• cinnamon/sugar mix, for dusting

Before making the crust, peel, core, and slice the apples and place them in a large bowl.

On top of the apples, pour the sugars, vanilla, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then use your hands to coat the apples evenly with the mixture. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the fridge until you are ready for it.

Prepare the dough, making sure to allow it to chill in the fridge before rolling them out to use in the pan. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Roll out the first disk of dough and place it in the pie pan, trimming the edges as needed. Pile in the apples, then roll out your second disk of dough to start cutting out the hearts.

Continue cutting out hearts and putting them on top of the apples until it looks like this:

Then, brush the top with the egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake in your oven for about 35-45 minutes. My edges burned, but my mom told me that if, before putting in the first layer of the crust, I lined the edge of the pan with aluminum foil, then removed it during the last ten minutes of baking, that the edges wouldn't burn. I'm going to have to remember that and try it next time.

Overall, it wasn't such a traumatizing experience for my first pie-baking adventure. We had it with vanilla ice cream, of course, and it was delicious! I just couldn't get over how pretty it turned out! I'll definitely be making this one again... but maybe not too soon, with the wedding being 7 months away and my first dress fitting coming up soon!

Happy baking!

Andrea