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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Belle's Apple Pie

Remember my apple pie post? Well... it came back to bite me. (No pun intended.)

I believe it was the very next week, Belle came home telling me that her second grade class was having an apple pie baking contest. I laughed. Out loud. Totally figures. BUT... we were not deterred by the fact that we couldn't procure Grandma's recipe. Instead, we set out in search of our own awesome, unique apple pie recipe.

On Sunday after church, we baked all afternoon. And I do mean 'we.' Belle does not tend to volunteer in the kitchen, but on Sunday, she was all over baking with Mommy. I found a similar recipe on two separate websites and tweaked them into a recipe Belle named, "Belle's Apple Pie."

We used a roll out, refrigerated crust. (Lazy, I know, but it worked great.) I let Belle 'crimp' the edges.

Next I cut up four large Granny Smith apples and sliced them in thin slices. To them, Belle added:

1/2 cup sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons flour
a dash of salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon allspice

Then, Belle mixed it all together. She found this process to be quite disgusting. I love the look on her face in this picture. (Umm, excuse me, Matt? Could you please be more considerate with your comings and goings in your own house? Trying to get good blog pictures here.)

Then Belle dumped her apples into the pie crust.

Next, we made the crumb topping. Belle put together in separate bowl:

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup butter

If we would have had a pastry cutter, we would have used it to integrate the butter, but since we didn't, we used our hands and mixed it all together until it resembled small crumbles. (Waaay more fun that way.) Then we sprinkled our crumb mixture evenly on top of the apples.

We covered the edges of our pie with foil so the crust wouldn't get too brown and baked at 375 degrees for 35 minutes. After the 35 minutes were up, we removed the pie, got rid of the foil, and baked another 20 minutes.

While our pie was baking, we put 1/2 cup whole pecans and 1/2 cup Heath brickle into a plastic baggie and crushed them together. Again.. if I had a food processor, we'd have used it. Since we didn't, we used Daddy's hammer. (Again... waaay more fun.) This is what it looked like when we were finished.

We covered the top of our pie with the pecan and brickle mixture. But wait... still not done.

The recipes we found said, "Top with caramel topping." But the Slaughter girls don't do well with store-bought. Sooo.... we made our own caramel sauce. It's a Pioneer Woman recipe, and you can find it here.( This sauce is amazing and multi-purpose. Last night, I had a bunch of girls over to my house, and we used it to top our hot chocolate and coffees. Yum.)

Now does that not look dreamy?

The contest was yesterday (Monday) morning, and my girl woke up super excited to enter her pie.

How did she do? Since this post is already novel length, I'll save the surprise until tomorrow. (Just call me Ryan Seacrest.)

5 comments:

Tire Swing Mom said...

The look on her face is priceless. I love how her little lip is snarled just a bit, as if she's thinking "how disgusting." The pie looks yummy!

Leslie said...

ANGELA! I had the priveledge of having a piece of that fab-u-lous pie! Let me just say, I do not eat apple pie. But that recipe, oh yes, I could eat everyday! YUM!!!

Kari Beth said...

Will be making this! Thanks for sharing recipe!

Joy Junktion said...

So intent on making it the BEST!! Looks YuMmY!!!

Franky said...

belle is a baker!! looks delicious!