Heartspun Apple Pie: Bake Up Some Love

Ladies, do you love your husbands, but just cannot find a perfect way to show him? It's time to go back to the age old saying, "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach"! We need to get back into the kitchen, pull up our sleeves and get down to the nitty-gritty of baking a scrumptious pie from scratch, sprinkle it with love, and serve it up to our man! My husband's favorite pie is all-American apple. There are so many recipes out there for apple pie, but this recipe is the best I could come up with after baking, re-baking, tweaking different recipes, adding and subtracting ingredients and taking my time to make it perfect. It is sure to melt your husband's heart, de-stress his life for a moment and give you a great chance to show that you will take the time out of your busy schedule just to make something special for him.

I have had many people come up to me after church dinners or family gatherings and ask me for my recipe because it is so different from store-bought pies and bakery pies...I tell them to just follow my recipe and sprinkle it with your own personal love at the end...you cannot go wrong!

CRUST:

• 2 c. unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 T. sugar
• 2/3 c. plus 2 T. shortening
• ice water
• half-and-half (before placing in oven)
• Raw sugar crystals (before placing in oven)

Mix flour, salt and sugar in a medium sized bowl. Add shortening and cut into flour mixture with a fork until evenly distributed. Add ice water about 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing with fork after each water addition until dough becomes very slightly wet and pulls away from side of bowl. The crust dough should be easy to handle...not too wet or too dry. Form dough into a ball. Cut dough in half and roll out one half to fit into the bottom of a 9 inch pie plate. Reserve the other half for later...cover it with a towel or plastic wrap to keep it fresh while making the filling.

APPLE FILLING

• 6 or 7 large Golden Delicious or Fuji apples
• 1/4 c. dark brown sugar
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 2 T. cornstarch
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 lemon, squeezed for juice
• 2 T. butter

Mix together in a small bowl the sugars, cornstarch and cinnamon. Peel and quarter apples. Thinly (very thinly - not quite see-through but almost!) slice each apple quarter and place in a large bowl. Pour lemon juice over apple slices and gently toss to incorporate lemon juice evenly over apples. Add the sugar mixture to apples and gently toss again to evenly distribute mixture over the apples. Pour the apple mixture into the pie pan previously prepared with bottom crust. Cut the 2 T. of butter into pieces and dot the apples with the butter. Roll out top crust and gently place it over the pie filling. Gently press top crust to apples release air from inside the pie. Cut the overhanging crust about 1 inch from side of pan, reserving extra crust dough. Roll under the dough around the outside of the pan and pinch with your fingers or the end of a steak knife to seal the dough and create a design around the outside of the pie. Roll out your excess dough and cut 3 simple leaf shapes, marking the leaf veins with the tip of your knife on each one. Brush the back of each leaf with half and half and place the end of each one against each other in the middle of the pie crust. Brush each leaf and the entire top of the pie with half and half. Cut 4 half inch vents around top of crust with a knife. Sprinkle entire top of crust with raw sugar crystals. Don't forget the most important ingredient!! - Generously sprinkle with lots and lots of love!

Place pie in a preheated 400 degree oven and bake for 20 minutes. After the first 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 40 minutes.

Enjoy the aroma of your house while the pie is baking and the smile on your husband's face when he takes his first bite! Some people like ice cream with their pie, but my husband says that ice cream would ruin this pie, it is so good. He wants to be able to taste the pie, and pie alone! ENJOY!