Rustic Apple Pie

I was rearranging my freezer the other day when I came across a frozen homemade pie dough. I knew it was there, I hadn't really forgotten about it. However, I could have sworn that I had two of them in there. I took it out and put it in the fridge to defrost, not quite sure what I wanted to do with it. Then it occurred to me that I had a lot of apples in the fridge.

As much as I love apples on their own, I hadn't made an apple pie, and figured it would be a nice treat. I really wanted a double crust pie, a la the cherry pie I made earlier this year, but I decided my one pie crust would have to make do. However, I followed a trick that I learned from the King Arthur Flour website in which you just fold the overlapping crust over on top of the pie. You can leave it like this, or fill it in with a crumble topping. I opted for crumble, but it would be great any way.The nice thing about an apple pie is that you really don't need a lot of sugar, because the fruit is pretty sweet on it's own. I only used 1/4 cup of light brown sugar.
The crumble topping isn't necessary, but it's yummy. I used a half stick of butter, 1/4 cup flour, and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. There is no need to be too technical with this, I used a pastry blender to cut it all together, but you can also just use your fingertips. Just cube the butter into small dice and squish all the ingredients together. Sprinkle on top right before you bake.

I thought this pie was great, and I used 5 apples. Three granny smith, 1 figi, and 1 golden delicious. I think the trick is to slice them quite thin, and try to overlap the slices as much as possible. For the filling, I also used lemon juice and zest, as well as my favorite new spice blend, Chinese 5 spice blend. Chris liked the layers of apples overlapping each other. The flavors were right on, not classic apple pie, but it was a great update.

One pie crust, store bought or homemade.
For the filling:
5 large apples, peeled, cored, and sliced. Any combination of granny smith and other less tart apples, try figi or yellow delicious.
1/4 cup brown sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 & 1/2 teaspoons Chinese 5 spice blend
1 & 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
For the crumble topping:
1/2 stick butter, cut into small dice
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Butter a 9 inch pie plate and assemble the pie. Brush the crust which overlaps with a mixture of 1 egg, beaten with a little cream. Sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, until filling is bubbly.

Oh and look at who is still hanging around... I thought I had to throw these away when I wrote about them last week, but Chris just suggested changing the water again. It worked! They are still here!