No shame. I’m baking this pie anyway. I don’t have a premade crust. I have to make my own dough. I want to use up the sorry apples that have been sitting on the counter too long, slipping into mushdum. I have a hankering for warm apple pie with a flaky buttery crust. I have flour. I have time.
At first push, it seemed like the dough would give in to the rolling pin and flatten out like the recipe said it should. That’s not exactly what happened. The dough did flatten out, but on the retreat roll back toward me, the dough pulled away from the counter and stuck to the pin. I stripped the wad of gluey dough away from the rolling pin, sprinkled more flour onto the counter and tried to roll again. Same gummy result. After a few more tries, the dough did flatten out but it was just a bigger blob of stickiness. I figured, enough of this, time to move on.
I transported glumps of dough from the counter to the baking dish in diameter installments of about 4 inches each. I jigsaw-puzzled them into the pie dish and pressed them in. Once my spicy apple filling was poured over them, nobody needed to know what the bottom of the crust looked like. It was a coverup.
Unfortunately, the pie also needs a top crust. Sure, I had just made a bad crust, but at least I wasn’t a beginner. The dough fell apart before landing on the dish, but the pieces were much bigger. I mushed the seams together and patched a seamless cover. To decorate, I stabbed a few knife slits in a star-shaped pattern. Then, attempting a professional look, I went around the rim with a fork, indenting the edges by pressing the tines into the soft mush.
I’m happy to leave my pie at what meets the eye. It's delicious. No lie about this pie.
