Thursday Recipe

I've never made a pie. For all the baking I've done, I have never attempted a pie. This recipe, though, sounds so delicious, that I may need to try my hand at it:

Apple-Maple Crunch Pie

Ingredients:

For crust:

1-1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Mazola corn oil
3 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup crushed nuts

For filling:

4 cups Granny Smith apples
1/2 cup apple juice
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons maple syrup

For topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup old-fashioned oats
5 tablespoons butter

Directions:

1. For crust, mix flour and salt in a small bowl to make a one-crust pie. Add oil and mash with a fork. Then add milk until fully mixed together. Roll out on wax paper and put into an 8-inch pie pan. Crimp edges. Press crushed nuts into crust bottom. Put foil around edge. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes in middle of oven, and cool.

2. For filling, peel, core, and cut apples into bite-size pieces and place in a small saucepan. Add apple juice to coat apples, and cook on medium heat for 3 minutes. Drain juice away. Add lemon juice and toss apples together. Mix sugar and cornstarch together and coat apples. Then add maple syrup and spices and toss gently together. Let set for ten minutes (you can prepare topping (below) during this time). Spoon evenly into pre-baked crust.

3. For topping, mix together brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, water, and chopped pecans. Add oats. Cut butter in small pieces, and crumble together with fingers over the apple filling, working out from center of the pie to cover all the apples. Bake at 350 degrees on middle rack for 40 minutes, covering with foil as needed to prevent crust burning.

Serves 8.