Apple Pie: No-Fail Method

Isn’t that the most awesome apple pie you’ve ever seen? I made it. Yes, thank you. I’m super-excited about it, too. It is 67% percent gone because people ate it. I mean, you’ve probably seen tons of pics of delicious-looking apple pie but who’s to say that anyone ate it? It could’ve been fashioned from cardboard and playdo and glitter. With mine, it’s the real deal.Oh, sure, I’m willing to tell you how I made it. Gladly. Here’s the pie filling: I took a bunch of apples given to me from a co-worker’s tree and after peeling and coring them, I cooked them in the crock pot for a while with a bit of water and quite a bit of cinnamon. I didn’t use nutmeg this time because last time we winced with every bite. After cooking it until the apples seemed soft but not mush, which is tricky to do when you’ve left the kitchen for the evening, I cooled it and then a couple of days later when I remembered it was still in the crock pot, I transferred the apple filling to the fridge. Actually, I wasn’t even thinking in terms of a pie at this point, so we just had cooked cinnamon apples for a few days until I decided that I might as well as make a pie.I found a recipe for gluten-free pie dough that wasn’t the one I used at Thanksgiving. That recipe had called for salt and I think I only put in the stated amount but it tasted like I might’ve got teaspoons confused with cups. For the record, we did eat that pie, too, because the filling was ah-mazing. The secret ingredient was apple juice. I forgot to use it in the above pie. But I did remember to put a tablespoon and then a bit more cornstarch with enough melted non-dairy butter and then add it to the apple filling. I think I put in some brown sugar but not much, whatever I scooped up loosely in my hand.Back to dough preparations. I went with a recipe that was just coconut oil, gluten-free flour and water. I used pancake mix and then when I ran out of that, I topped it with GF flour I didn’t even know I had and it had xanthum gum in it which was a bonus because the recipe had called for that and I thought I’d have to skip it because the only xanthum gum I had expired in 2014. It didn’t look bad but I thought it might not be effective anymore. I also put in water but I couldn’t tell you how much because it said ice water and I don’t know how fast my ice cubes melt at room temperature. The recipe said I should put in enough so the dough isn’t too wet or too dry, and I was okay with that guideline. It also didn’t mention chilling the dough, so I didn’t but then it didn’t roll right, so I did chill it for as long as it took me to chill about how it wouldn’t roll right. The second go-around was better but I pretty much had to pinch the dough together in a hundred places.This time when I baked it, I remembered to take it out, which produces much more satisfying results. It is delicious with cream or something called Coco-whip and ice cream (I’m only assuming that because I don’t have any ice cream in the house right now). And just so you know, I am glad to share my recipe, but feel free to adjust to suit your tastes.