Apple pie goes hand and hand with fall. My church had their fall festival and an apple pie contest was part of it. I felt it would be fitting to enter a pie. I love apple pie and it's probably my favorite pie. This is another pie that I've never made before, so I was excited to give it a try. I used a combination of Gala and Golden Delicious apples. I choose this combination because Gala are sweet and Golden Delicious are tart but not as tart as Granny Smith apples. I made a streusel topped pie, frankly because I'm lazy. I only had one pie crust made and didn't want to make another one. I followed the Golden Delicious Apple Pie with Oatmeal Crumb Topping recipe from my Pie book. I had to make the pie in a disposable pie dish, which is much smaller then my normal pie dish. I ended up getting two pies out of the recipe.
I started by peeling and cutting the apples. I used nine apples total: five Golden Delicious and four Gala. Once all the apples were cut, I mixed them with lemon juice and zest. I used my favorite sugar substitute Nectresse to sweeten the pie. I added nutmeg and cinnamon. I added a teaspoon of vanilla that was not part of the recipe. The final ingredient was corn starch. I let that sit for 10 minutes and then filled the pie shells.
I baked the pie for 30 minutes at 400 degrees before adding the streusel topping. For the streusel topping, I used butter, brown sugar, flour, corn meal, cinnamon, and oatmeal. I mixed all the ingredients together in the blender for a few minutes. Then I hand-mixed it to get the right streusel texture. I turned the oven down to 375 degrees and added the streusel. I baked the pie for an additional 30 minutes. I was able to have a piece since the recipe made two pies. The pie was very tasty and flavorful. The streusel topping made the pie extra special.