nutty sour cream apple pie

I love apple pie, but wanted something a little different.  And I had some sour cream that needed to be used or tossed today.  And so the perfect solution!

This pie was delicious.  The filling is a little custardy, but certainly not as much as the apple pie in orange custard that I made back in January.  It was also a much heavier pie.  But the custard was just creamy enough and the apples just soft enough to create a really interestingly textured filling.

The crust is made with a bit of orange rind and orange juice instead of water, and that was an interesting idea, but I’m not sure it really came through in the final product.  But still, an interesting idea.  I’d rather like to play with it in the future.

Nutty sour cream apple pie, from Philip Stephen Schulz’s As American as Apple Pie.  pg 21

Shaker Lemon Pie

The only America’s Test Kitchen recipe that’s been a total dud!  It was my fault, but I think the instructions should have been more clear.  It said to slice the lemons thinly, but did not elaborate on what “thinly” meant.  I totally missed the mark, and think I cut them thickly.

When you pick out the giant chunks of lemons, what’s left is pretty good.  Basically, it’s a crust with some lemon cream.  The lemon cream is very good, and I bet a pie full of it would have been excellent.

Shaker Lemon Pie, from Cook’s Country Best Country Recipes: Every Recipe, Testing, and Tasting from the Third Season of Cook’s County from America’s Test Kitchen.  Pg. 2.

Apple pie in orange custard

I’m sorry, but there was no way to make this pie look attractive for a photograph.  It looked a bit better in the photos I took of the pie as a whole, but I wanted to show what it looks like all the way through: a mess of tart apples and sweet, delicate custard.  That’s what I like about Ken Haedrich’s recipes: they’re all about taste and simplicity and just mixing up some plain, boring ingredients into something that could never be called elegant, but will always be delicious.*  I’m actually surprised this is the first of his recipes that have made it into this blog, as he’s one of my favorite cookbook authors and I use several of his baking cookbooks all the time.

I wanted an apple pie, but I wanted something different.  And this fit the bill perfectly.  You prebake the crust, saute the apples in some butter and sugar before putting them in the crust, then pour the custard over the apples, and bake.  The result is something I’ve never really had before: a crunchy custard pie.  Who would have thought to create such a thing?  The custard tastes delicately of orange, which is a nice mix with the apples.

Overall, great recipe.  There were more steps than your average apple pie, but none were particularly complicated or time consuming.

*ETA: Some of his recipes actually are pretty elegant.  But I always make the simple ones, because they’re the ones that call for the ingredients I have on hand.

Apple pie in orange custard, from Ken Haedrich’s Simple Desserts: Sweet Endings with a Carefree Spirit.  Pg 118.