Apples in Minnesota

Fall weather is starting to hit. The weather in Minneapolis is seeing average highs of 50-60s and lows of 40-50s. Well... except for today at an usual high of 75 degrees. The leaves are a spectrum of reds, yellows, and oranges.  Scarves and cardigans finally serve a real purpose for a whole season instead of the 2 weeks in January in Texas. The weather is lovely when the sun is out but curse the morning shivers when I wake up to a brisk air. Instead of running the a/c, it's cool enough outside to just open the windows.


There is an apple farm in Still Water, MN called Aamodt's. There's a bakery that's filled every type of delicious apple goodies like apple oatmeal cookies, apple cider, apple cider donuts, apple donuts, apple pies, apple turnovers, and soooo much more! There's a stand outside the bakery that sells apple bratwurst. Next door is a winery where you can taste 5 different wines for $5. The $5 also go towards bottles if you buy 2. We had two white wines, 2 reds, and a raspberry dessert wine. Yum! One weekend we picked sweet 16 apples and another weekend I went, we picked harlesons. What to do with all these apples?! Eunice baked a pie with the apples that she picked. She inspired me to make an attempt at pie. There's still a ton of apples left so why the hell not? I was debating on making pie or caramel apples so a caramel apple pie seemed like the perfect compromise. Thanks to google, I found a recipe for Caramel Apple Pie off of food network.

Ta da!

Ok, I may have cheated and used Pilsbury pie crust. Maybe.

Caramel Apple Pie

from Food Network.

Ingredients

Pie Crust:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter flavored shortening, chilled
• 1/3 cup ice water
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 egg, beaten

Filling:

• 6 cups apples (in my case, sweet 16)
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purposeflour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 tablespoons heavy cream
• 4 tablespoons butter

Streusel Topping:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 toffee bars or 3 ounces chocolate covered peanut or pecan brittle, crushed

Directions

Pie Crust:

Chill all ingredients, including the flour and vinegar. Combine the flour, salt and sugar. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles cornmeal. In another bowl, mix water and vinegar with the beaten egg. Add the liquid mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time, to the flour mixture, tossing with a fork to form a soft dough.

Filling:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Peel and slice apples. Sprinkle with lemon juice. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and add apples. Toss to mix. Add vanilla and cream. Melt butter in heavy skillet. Add apple mixture and cook approximately 8 minutes, to soften apples. Turn into pie shell.

Streusel Topping:

Combine the flour and sugar. Mix in butter with fork until coarse crumbs. stir in the crushed toffee bars. Sprinkle over pie. Add top crust. Seal, flute edge and vent top. Brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake 45 minutes longer.

Got a dog? Check out the homemade apple & banana pie dog treat that I made for Mochi at my homemade dog treats blog: For the Love of Pooch