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.