I wanted to make an apple pie tonight but didn’t feel like anything as heavy as two crusts. Yet, I didn’t want to just make a crisp or cobbler either. I thumbed through a few apple pie recipes, having some vague memory of a one crust pie I’d seen with some sort of custard. I saw one for a ricotta apple pie, but opted for an apple custard pie I saw in Better Homes & Garden New Cookbook, one of my old standbys.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.

I made the crust up in my food processor, although I often mix a pie crust up in my stand mixer. This is a fairly standard recipe for one crust I think:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
4-5 Tbs cold water

For detailed instructions or a low-fat pie crust, see my write up here for pie crust.

In this case, roll out the pie crust and lay it in a 9″ pie pan. Peel, core, and slice enough apples to fill the crust and mound over a bit, probably 6-8 apples depending on their size. The apples will shrink as they cook down, so make them mounded a bit over the crust.

In a small bowl, mix together:

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbs flour

Then add:

1/4 cup light cream

Mix well and pour over the apples. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover the pie loosely with a piece of aluminum foil and bake for an hour. Take the foil off and bake another 15 minutes or so, until the apples are soft when you poke them with a fork.

This was really good. The custard-like stuff with the apples is fairly light, certainly lighter than a second crust would be. Definitely a repeat!