simple apple pie

Ever since I began baking, I have had trouble with pie crust. It just doesn't come out flaky and tender, no matter what I do.

This time I did something new. I followed the recipe.

Simple, right? Wrong. You see the recipe states the following:

Mix flour with salt. Okay so far.
Cut in butter so that it look like granules or little peas. Okay, but I tend to over cut - making the peas small.
Sprinkle cold water a tablespoon at a time until batter comes together. HERE is the problem. The 6-7 tablespoons they suggest never get the batter to come together and I end up using 8, 9, 10 tablespoons of water. Then it becomes too tough.

This time, even though the dough did not come together, I stuck to the 7 tablespoons of water. I separated the flour into two crumbly masses and rolled one out.

Amazingly it held together and became one pie crust. I was able to get the top on and crimped just fine. Only problem was that the part I crimped did become a bit tough but the rest of the crust was light a flaky just as it was mean to be!

Maybe the next pie I make will have flaky edges too. Baby steps and soon I will have the perfect pie crust.

Simple Apple Pie
Makes one 9 inch pie

Ingredients

• Two 9-inch pie crusts
• 8-10 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon flour

Instructions

1. Make the pie crust and roll out and place the bottom one in a pie pan and in the fridge while you prepare the filling.
2. Toss all ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Pour filling into pie crust and cover with second crust. Bake in oven at 425F for 10 minutes. Then lower the temp to 350F and complete baking for 40-45 minutes until top crust is browned.