Saturday afternoon I decided to bake an apple pie.
I wanted to try out a new recipe.
I bought the pie crust (good old Pillsbury) but everything else was completely from scratch. I followed the recipe exactly. Piled up the apples in the crust. Lots and lots of apples. Added the crumbly topping. Put it in the oven at 375. As it baked, it smelled absolutely divine. When I checked on it after 30 minutes, I noticed a slight puddle of overflowing liquid - combination of butter, sugar, apple juice, etc. forming on the bottom of the oven. So, I pulled the pie out, put it on a jelly roll pan and put it back in the oven. A few minutes later, I noticed that smoke was starting to fill the house then the smoke alarm sounding screeching. I opened all the doors and windows. Kept baking the pie. The alarm eventually stopped. The smoke cleared out. And I took a luscious, golden brown pie out of the oven. I sliced one perfect slice, then went to scoop it onto a plate...the bottom crust was still totally raw. So, I put the slice back in the pie. Turned the oven back on, and stuck the pie back in the oven. Set the timer for 15 minutes. 5 minutes into the baking, the house again filled up with black smoke. 3 different fire alarms started screeching. I pulled the pie out of the oven. Turned it off. Turned on the toaster oven. Put the pie in there to finish baking. 10 minutes later, the smoke alarms again started screeching. I pulled the pie out. The beautiful crunchy topping was now slightly blackened. The bottom crust was still raw. I scraped off most of the topping, added a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream, and served it to Dan. He ate it. Didn't ask for more. I tasted it. It tasted like charcoal-scented, soggy apple mush. I threw the whole thing away. Used the Oven Cleaning feature on the oven for the first time.
Today, I started over. Started modifying the recipe.
Divided the huge amount of yummy apples into two separate crusts.
Used a jelly roll pan from the beginning to catch spills. Of course, there were no spills.
We ate apple pie for dinner. With whipped cream. Then we had apple pie for dessert. It was really, really good. Click the pic for the recipe!
