double fisted French apple pie

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These are my apple pie tools.

Apple pie may be very American, but this is French apple pie, needing special considerations. The buttery crumb topping makes it French, according to Mme. Betty Crocker. I always thought crumb topped pie was called Dutch apple (remember double Dutch, in jump rope?). Dutch apple pie is actually when you pour cream in through slits in the top crust during the last five minutes of baking. Wow.

I rolled the dough out on the cutting board that I carried home on the Metro from the Paris flea market. People on the train looked at me like I was carrying a weapon. I tried to look nonchalant, as if a) I weren't an American tourist and b) it is perfectly normal to get on the Metro with a big round board with a handle. Travel tip: no matter how you try to blend in, those Parisians pick up your Americanness every time. I is what I is, I guess.

The apples I used were our yellow transparent apples, what was left of them by the deer and the kids playing knock-the-apples-off-the-tree at the wedding. I used Don's ice scraper to pull the high, remaining apples within reach.

I see that the winner of the national pie championship was made with yellow transparent apples. I don't think you can find them in many shops or farmers markets, so we are fortunate to have this very (French)-tart variety right in our little orchard. (I don't think they're really French apples; I just threw that in with the tart.) You can use Granny Smiths, another tart apple, if you can't find transparents. But really, wouldn't you rather have a French tart than a Granny Smith?





This is Don's ice scraper tool co-opted for pulling apple boughs down.



















Here are the yellow transparent apples, so pretty, with Don counting sunflowers in the background. (It's over, Don, the wedding is over, it doesn't matter how many we have now.)













The weapon.









French apple pie before adding ice cream.

The recipes:

Instead of a top crust, I topped it with crumbly yums, making it French apple.
I added chopped, salted pecans to the crumb topping: