As you slice the apples, put them in a bowl and toss them with a little lemon juice or apple cider vinegar. The acidity of the lemon juice or vinegar will help keep the apples from discoloring while you work and will intensify the apple flavor in the pie.
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 50 minutes
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients
Filling:
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2/3 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 1/2 cup if you like your apple pies a little less sweet)
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 3 cups peeled, sliced tart apples (about 1 1/4 pounds of slices, cut 1/4-inch to a 1/2-inch thick)
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
- One 9″ unbaked pie shell, frozen or chilled in the freezer for at least 30 minutes (see sour cream pie crust recipe, use a single crust recipe)
Topping:
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/4 cup butter (1/2 a stick), chilled, cut into cubes
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix together all ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Chill until needed in the recipe.
Method
- Make the streusel topping: Place the streusel topping ingredients in a medium bowl and mix with a fork or your hands until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Chill in the refrigerator until the topping is needed half-way through the baking. - Preheat oven to 400°F with a rack in the middle and another rack below it. Place a large rimmed baking sheet on the lower rack to catch any of the drippings from the pie.
- Mix sour cream with sugar, flour, salt, vanilla, egg, and coat apple slices with it: In a large bowl put the sour cream, sugar, flour, salt, vanilla, and egg. Use a wooden spoon and beat by hand until smooth. Fold in the apples and stir until all of the apples are coated with the sour cream filling mixture.
- Put the filling into a frozen pie shell. For the first stage of baking, bake the pie for 25 minutes at 400°F.
- After the first 25 minutes, remove the pie from the oven and sprinkle the top with the brown sugar butter flour topping mixture. You may also want to put a pie protector or foil around the outer crust edges to keep them from getting too browned. Bake for another 20 minutes at 400°F.
- Cool: Let the pie cool on a rack for one hour before cutting and serving.