Apple pie with cinnamon

This recipe has been in my family for decades, and I decided to make bite-sized treats in a mini muffin pan instead of a traditional pie, in the interest of portion control.

List of ingredients and quantities

(c=cup, tbsp=tablespoon, tsp=teaspoon)

6 medium apples, peeled and sliced (I used four large)

1 unbaked pie crust

2 tbsp flour                  

¾ c sugar (I used slightly less, just about half a cup)           

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1 c sour cream (I used fat free sour cream)

Topping: ¼ c butter at room temperature, 1/3 c flour,

1/3 c sugar (I used about ¼ cup), 1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Directions:

Peel and slice apples, mix with flour and all other ingredients. Pour into pie crust.

Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 45 minutes.

Mix topping ingredients with a fork until mixture is crumbly. Remove pie from oven after 45 minutes at 350, sprinkle topping over apples, increase heat to 400, and return pie to oven for 10 minutes.

Serving suggestions: vanilla ice cream and/or whipped cream

The filling makes for a heaping pie, which will deflate a bit during baking, but resulted in too much filling for the mini muffin sized bites, so I put the remaining filling into some ramekins and baked them without a crust. I tried making the topping with butter substitute, but ended up with a paste instead of crumbles, which I used anyway- the look might not be so cute, but the ingredients for the flavor were the same.

Lessons learned:

1. fat free sour cream is fine in this recipe.

2. Substitute butter product doesn’t result in crumbles for the topping.

3. For my taste, the crust to filling ratio in the mini bites is off… in the future I will stick to a full-sized pie with this recipe. The taste is great, so for first timers, there won’t be anything to compare it to, but one of my favorite aspects of this pie is that it’s so moist.

4. In the past, I have made this recipe with whole wheat flour, and have not noticed a different taste. You can see a slightly darker look of the filling, so a photo of a slice of pie would have picked up on it, but the flavor is fine.

5. If using a mini muffin pan, use plenty of non-stick spray before putting the pie dough circles in.

6. Next time I would use even less sugar: under ½ cup in the filling, and under ¼ cup in the topping.

7. This is yummy, even without ice cream or whipped cream!

The last time I had apple crisp, I did load up on the toppings!