Epic fail apple pie

When a blogger posts about an “epic fail”, it usually means that an attempt to create something, be it food, home décor or DIY project has gone south, i.e. wrong…horribly wrong in some cases. Like mine as you shall see. Paulie brought home two cans of apple pie filling. They caught his eye because they contained Fuji apples, one of our favorites. Those two cans joined the can of Musselman’s apple pie filling that had been languishing in the RV pantry for a while. Why I purchased one can of pie filling escapes me, but I must have had some puff pastry at one time and thought I’d make some turnovers. When Paulie, (my hubby/ DH/ better half/ significant other, who I named the Polish Prince long before I ever knew what a blog was so no tsk-tsking me for giving him a cute name like all the other bloggers in blogland), brought home the apples I told him I would make him an apple pie with crumb topping. He loves crumb topping on pies, like moi, so the other day when I saw then apples while looking for something else, I decided to make a pie on Tuesday. I don’t know where I stored the rolling pin to make a homemade crust and I wasn’t in the mood to go to the grocery store for premade pie crusts so I googled no roll pie crust and found several possible recipes. I picked one and got to work.




Here is my step by step “tute” for making a smoosh crust canned apples homemade apple pie…

Gather your ingredients for the crust: 1 1/2 cup flour, ½ cup veggie oil, 2 Tlb sugar, ½ tsp salt and 2 Tlb milk.  Sift dry ingredients and then mix all ingredients together. Smooch into pie plate to cover plate and up the sides of the pan, just like a regular rolled crust.

 Open cans of pie filling and dump into the crust in the pie plate.

Mix crumb topping ingredients with a two forks or a pastry cutter:  1 ½ sticks cold butter broken into smaller chunks, ¾ cup brown sugar(use what you have, light or dark) 1/3 cup white sugar, ¼ tsp salt and 1 ½ cups flour.  Mix with the forks or pastry cutter until crumbly.  

Sprinkle over apples. 

Look how lucious this looks....

This recipe makes a generous amount of topping so you may have to press it into the top of the pie. Place the pie on a foil lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for one hour.  Smells wonderful right out of the oven. Cool then slice and serve.

Looks can be deceiving and this is a prime example.

The pie was HORRIBLE.

The apples were tasteless, the crust disgusting and oily (and underdone I might add) but at least the topping was good. I threw it away. All of it. Paulie ate his slice; I would not even try again after the first foul bite. Ugh. Epic Fail. So much for pie. If I ever go to the trouble of making a pie, I am going to make it right. Butter pie crust made simple and fast in the food processer…real Granny Smith apples with real sugar, cinnamon and spices…same topping though! What was I thinking?

In retrospect after writing this, I think I should have prebaked the pie crust.  I don't recall the site where I got the recipe  so I can't go back and see if I didn't read all the instructions.  That was prolly where the problem started.  I also should have sprinkled some flour into the bottom crust.  I read on a tip sheet that helps prevent a soggy crust. I suppose I should have tasted the apples before I put them in the crust to test for spices but I didn't do that either.  Shame on me.  The apples were overly sweet and had NO taste at  all.  Like I said earlier, the crumb topping as always, is very good and is a great addition to any fruit pie.  I especially like it on blueberry and mixed berry and sour cherry.  It is too sweet for peach, but I make it anyway...

So...if you should have any canned fruit pie filling laying around and decide to make a pie, I offer these suggestions...taste the filling before you use it.  Adjust for your taste by adding whatever it needs like cinnamon, or if there is too much gooey stuff and not enough fruit, add some if you can.  If you use a new recipe, be sure you book mark it or copy it or try printing the full recipe out rather than writing it on a scrap of paper like I did.   Sometimes my cheapness thrifty nature gets the best of me.  I use glass pie plates and I KNOW that I need to check the bottom of the pan to make sure the bottom crust is browned and it was done.  I used the timer as my only guide.  I am an experienced baker and sometimes I forget the little things. This is a bad habit that costs me time and money.

There you have it.  My RV Homemaking blog and my first fail.  Live and learn.