Baked Apple Pie Recipe

My 1st Apple Pie

I had some good compliments on this pie as being a sweet and flavorful apple pie. I believe I got the recipe from Pillsbury because I've never baked an apple pie before and I've been wanting to for a long time. I guess fear kept me away. Now, I don't know why I waited so long because it is so simple, easy and you use very few ingredients.

Apple Pie Recipe
Prep: 20 minutes
Preheat: 375 degrees F
Yield: 8 servings

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
6-7 cups thinly sliced apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 egg white
1 tablespoon butter
Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
Additional sugar

• In a small bowl, combine the first 6 ingredients; set aside.  In a large bowl, toss apples with lemon juice.  Add sugar mixture; toss to coat.
• Line 9 inch pie plate with bottom crust; trim pastry even with edge.  Fill with apple mixture; dot with butter.  Roll out remaining pastry to fit top of pie.  Place over filling.  Trim, seal and flute edges.  Cut slits in pastry.
• Beat egg white until foamy; brush over pastry.  Sprinkle with sugar.  Cover edges loosely with foil or pie cover ring.
• Bake for 25 minutes at 375 degrees F. Remove foil and bake for another 20-25 minutes until crust is golden and filling is bubbly.  Cool on rack. 

Tips:

1. To make sure the apples were equally coated in spices, I toss the apples and then transferred the apples into the bowl the spices were in and then back.  It seemed to coat a little better. 
2. When placing the bottom crust, don't use your finger tips or nails to place it to the wall of pie plate.  I used either the back of my hand or knuckles because your finger tips or nails might tear a hole in the pastry. 
3. When placing the pastry on top of apple mixture, I folded the rolled out pastry in half.  You could go ahead and cut out a half moon shape before placing it onto the pie.  Place the folded pastry onto half of the pie and then unfold to cover the rest of pie.  In a sawing motion (up and down), cut the excess pastry off around the plate.  Then, using your fingers crimp.  The way I did it was - with one hand, two of my fingers made the peace sign to the outside of the pie edge and with the other hand I pushed my thumb between my two fingers - making a crimp style.  There are several different styles to crimp your pie edge, but I think this is the traditional.
4. To vent your pie, I made little slits with a paring knife that I used to peel the apples. 
5. If you have some nice wide pieces of dough scraps left, I cut out small leaves with the same paring knife.  Once cut out, take the back of your knife and indent (but don't cut) a straight line down the center of the leaf pastry.  Then make indents at a diagonal to make the veins of the leaf.  Place your leaves around your pie crust.  I put most of mine around the hole.  I didn't have a lot of dough to make big leaves. 
6. I highly recommend purchasing a pie crust cover ring.  It's a lifesaver! The foil is good, but it can fall off easily.  I've tried it before in the past, before the pie cover.
7. Be sure to put the pie plate on a cookie sheet before placing it in the oven.  The juices like to run out sometimes. I forgot this time because I had to tend to a toddler running around.  Now, I've got to clean my oven again.

ENJOY!