This recipe is pretty basic. But, it uses my mom’s special crust, which combines margarine (or butter) and cream cheese. Also, you can really go crazy with decorating the crust by taking leftover dough and cutting out patterns either with a knife or with decorative pastry cutters (available at most housewares stores).

Mom’s Pie Crust
(makes two crusts)

2 1/2 cu All Purpose Flour
3/4 cu Margarine (12 tablespoons), diced and cold (I use butter, my mom uses margarine)
6 oz Cream Cheese, diced and cold

Combine flour, margarine and cream cheese and mix together with your hands, breaking margarine and cream cheese down into smaller bits. Continue blending until the flour has been incorporated and dough holds together. Divide the dough into two equal parts. Roll each into a ball and flatten slightly. Wrap each in plastic and refrigerate for an hour.

Apple Pie

Ingredients:

2 pie crusts (recipe above)
6 med Granny Smith Apples
2 tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 cu Granulated Sugar
1/4 cu Light Brown Sugar
2 tbl. All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 tsp Lemon Zest
1 tbl Butter
Milk

Additional granulated sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to sprinkle on crusts

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel, core, and thinly sliced apples. Mix with lemon juice. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix sugars, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon zest. Place one pie crust in a pie pan and allow edges to extend over the sides. Layer half of the sliced apples on crust. Top with half of the sugar mixture. Repeat with remaining apples and sugar. Dot the top with pieces of the butter.

Roll out second crust. Cut four to five teardrop shapes (about 11/2 inches long) around the center to vent pie as it cooks. Place crust over apple and sugar mixture allowing edges to extend over lower crust. Crimp two crust edges together using your fingers. If you have additional scraps of crust leftover, make decorative patterns and apply to the crust.

Brush the top with milk and lightly sprinkle sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon on top. Loosely tent pie with aluminum foil and place it on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove aluminum and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes until crust is golden brown.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.