Not My Mom's Apple Pie

When you walk into a room, you smell, the cinnamon. The smell is intoxicating. It someone making an apple pie. Apple pies are popular this time of year, there is something about The spiciness of the apples, the warm goo coming from the crust on a chilly fall night. My mom taught me how to make apple pie, but after a recent cooking class I realized how she made it was wrong.

I love my mom, and her cooking is good, not the best but good. When she made apple pie she put the apples, white sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and let it sit for half the day then place in dough and bake. I always wondered why jar apple filling was gel like and my mom's never was.

I was invited to attend this fall cooking class where we made an October apple pie. It a caramel apple pie. I decided to attend to see how they make the apple pie and I wanted to try a caramel apple pie, it sounded delicious.

First we started with the ingredients, recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie 6 cups thinly sliced apples, granny smith, 1 lemon, juiced, 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup butter, chilled and diced, 9 caramel squares, quartered, 1 tablespoon white sugar.

Already I was seeing a difference from what my mom made, lemon juice, she never used lemons, and I don't even think she knew what nutmeg was. I was seeing how these items would make the jelliness of the filling. We did not have the caramel squares though, instead we used the new Kraft bits, that were introduced this year, and used about a hand full of those.

Next came to make the actual pie, In a large bowl, combine apples, lemon juice, sugars, spices, flour, butter, and caramels. Stir to coat fruit evenly. Roll dough out, and cut out two crusts. Line a pie plate with one of the crusts. Spoon filling into the bottom crust, and cover with the top crust. Crimp the edges. Place the pie on a baking sheet covered with foil. Poke fork holes over top. Sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 50 minutes. If you notice over browning after 30 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Serve warm, or at room temperature.

Ok wait what about letting the apples juice up for half the day, like mom did? As I mixed the ingredients to coat them, I noticed the apples were juicing and they were also getting that jelly look to, like what I saw in the cans. This convinced me that maybe mom was making pies wrong all these years.

This is a cooking class so we had to write our last names on our pies and we could also do a decoration, so as I "cut" my name in my top crust, I decided to cut out hearts, something mom would never do, she just stick a fork in it and call it done. As I was cutting I could smell the aroma, and it was not even baked yet. As The baking time went by, we socialized, the other students and myself, exchanged recipes, while the room filled with the heavenly aroma, my mouth was watering these pies smelled so good!

The time came it was time to take them out and let them cool a bit before we dived into our creations of October Apple Pie. The taste was out this world. This recipe was a perfect combination of apple pie meets caramel pie. Best of al I finally learned how to bake apple pie the right way. I took the rest the pie home, and my husband nervously tried it, normally I bake very well, but because I always made mom's pie, it was to say a dry pie. He looked at me and said you finally cracked the recipe. So now along with my signature cookie I make, I know have a signature pie. Although she makes it wrong I still owe this pie to mom, if it wasn't for my curiosity, I would never discovered this gem of a recipe.