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How to Make an Ugly Apple Pie for Dinner

What’s for dinner? I know I shouldn’t ask it, but I can’t help myself. We told the story of how my Mom loves that question here. But tonight, I knew we did not have any food in the house. And I mean nothing. Except…. Apples. We have a ton of apples. We have tried to use them up by making bunny treats, apple topping for pancakes, and slicing them up into tiny bites for lunch for days now. But we just can’t seem to get our stock from our two apple trees to go down! And then I had a funny memory. When we were young, we used to love reading the book, “An Apple Pie for Dinner.” We would spend hours looking for the little ladybug on each page that was hidden. It is such a wonderful book! And then it dawned on us, that we should have apple pie for dinner just like in the book!

An Apple Pie for Dinner retold by Susan Vanhecke

Can Kids Make Pie?

The truth is, pie seems like a very scary thing to make. I mean, there is the whole scary crust issue and then making the filling and timing everything correctly. It seemed daunting. But we decided that even if it was a failure, it would still be better than having chicken for dinner.

ugly apple pie for dinner finished

We started with the oil pie crust from our Cousin Ben. You can read about that adventure here.

What is the Best Pie Filling?

Now we were left with a decision of whether or not to use our fall apple topping that we used for our pancakes for the inside of the pie. We got a little nervous because we were not sure it would cook the same as that stove top method, so we used this recipe that my Mom had tried before.

ugly apple pie ingredients

Preparing the Apples:

I always thought that making an apple filling would be super hard and complicated. But honestly, peeling and coring the apples only took a few minutes. And then we loaded that bowl with sugar! This was going to be the best dinner ever!

We scooped them right into our prepared dough and noticed we had just enough extra to experiment with some of the extra dough. Why not?

I took some of the dough that had fallen off of the crust and mushed it around just like play dough. And then I thought, what if I made little pie cakes? My sister said there was no way they would stay together, but that made me want to try even more. Challenge accepted.

Honestly, the smell in the house as this cooked was what fall dreams are made of.

Even an Ugly Apple Pie is the Best Dinner!

While I would not say that either the pie or the little pie cakes were the prettiest we have ever seen. In fact, I might even call it an ugly apple pie. But we were so proud of ourselves for at least trying. It was the best dinner we have had in a long time.

Ugly Apple pie for dinner

How to Make an Ugly Apple Pie for Dinner

Yield: 1 Pie
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes

What’s for dinner? We are fresh out of ideas. So why not have an ugly apple pie for dinner?

Ingredients

  • Pastry for Double-Crust Pie Store-Bought or Make Your Own
  • 6 Cups Peeled and Sliced Apples (about 1 1/2 pounds)
  • 1 Tablespoon Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 Cup White Sugar
  • 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
  • 2 Tablespoons Cold Butter Chopped

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
  2. Prepare your pie crust by rolling it about 1/4 inch thin and place in pie dish.
  3. Peel, core, and slice 6 cups of apples.
  4. In a large mixing bowl, mix apples, lemon juice, sugar, and flour.
  5. Add apple mixture prepared pie crust. Top the mixture with cubes of cold butter.
  6. Cover with other half of pie crust and pinch the sides. Create vents in any design you prefer.
  7. Put pie dish on a baking sheet just in case the pie overflows. Cook at 450 F for 15 minutes. Lower the heat to 350 F and cook for another 50 minutes. If the top of the pie starts to brown too much, place a loose covering of aluminum foil over the pie for the final minutes cooking.
  8. Allow pie to cool before cutting, as the inside will be spill everywhere until it is cooled. (Although this is not a problem for us.)

Notes

Adapted from Our Best Bites

To read our adventure of making our pie crust, visit How to Make an Ugly Oil Pie Crust

Did you experiment with this recipe?

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