Best Apple Pie Recipe Ever. Because, Bacon.

I stumbled upon a discovery last week while hanging around my mom’s kitchen trying NOT to be suckered into helping with things.

I know, that makes me sound horrible, but in my defense, my mom’s house is the only place on this entire planet that I can go and be taken care of while healthy and conscious. Every place else I am the mom and in charge of the taking care of things. Usually all of the things. Basically all of the time.

I often joke when I get crazy-lose-my-mind busy that I need a hospital break, a night or two in the hospital here no one expect me to do anything but make it through the night alive. But no one really wants that. What I want is a go-to-my-mom’s-house-so-she-can-take-care-of-me-and-my-kids break.

I was busy having one of those last weekend and she just so happened to be in the throws of apple pie baking at the exact same time that I was taken hostage by the desire to consume a large quantity of bacon.

I baked my bacon (yep, put it in the oven, it is the best that way).

She cut her apples.

And, when it was all laying around on the counter together smelling all savory and sweet, I decided to wrap her raw apples in my cooked bacon and eat them that way.

I could end this post right here having supplied you with a tasty snack option to enjoy for all of your days, but it was truly only the beginning.

I figured, if unadulterated apples wrapped in oven baked bacon was this joyful in the mouth, think of what apples, coated in apple pie juices with bacon sprinkled on top then wrapped in a pie crusty hug that was baked to perfection might be like.

Probably, I would die.

Mimi, apple pie traditionalist that she is, wasn’t prepared to have her entire pie altered for my the sake of my vision, but she was happy to give me some of her excess pie dough to create a mini version of my masterpiece.

We should all be thankful of her support…

The Best Apple Pie Recipe Ever Thanks to Mimi (and the added awesome of bacon)

Ingredients

Crust:

2 cups flour

½ cup butter, chilled

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

½ cup iced water

Apple Pie Filling:

12 Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced

½ cup butter

3 tablespoons flour

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup light brown sugar

¼ cup water

Optional 2 strips of cooked bacon, crumbled

Directions

1. Add salt to flour in large bowl and mix. Cut in butter. It will look grainy when you’re done with it.

2. Add vinegar to ice water and stir into flour.

3. Mix until flour holds together and pulls away from the bowl.

4. Divide into two equal portions and form into balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and flat slightly.

5. Slam those bad boys into the fridge and let them chill out there for about 30 minutes while you go to work on the pie filling.

6. Peel and slice your apples pie style. (For mini bacon pie, chop them into cubes so they will fit more easily into your mini pie dish. Also, if you’ve not cooked your bacon, no would be a good time to get on that.)

7. Spritz your apples with a lemon. Don’t go crazy with it, it’s just for freshness purposes.

8. Melt the butter in a saucepan.  Add the flour and stir to form a smooth paste.

9. Add the sugars and water and bring to a boil.  Simmer for about 5 minutes stirring occasionally.

10. Your pie crust should be ready to roll so snag one out of the fridge, roll it flat and add it to your 9 inch pie pan. Make sure the crust fills the entire dish and that there is a small amount of overhang over the top of your dish. (For mini pies, line each dish with crust and leave a little overhang at the top.)

11. Add your apples to the crust. (If you’re doing bacon, sprinkle it over the apples. Mini pies only need about half a piece of bacon each.)

12. Take your second crust ball from the fridge and roll it out. Cut it into one inch strips (you can measure if you want, but I’d just eye ball it; each strip will be about the size of two fingers) for lattice top making. (Mini pie makers, one inch is too thick for your strips so make ‘em skinnier or your pie will only have like two strips on it.)

13. Lattice your pie. You have to alternate the strips threading them over under style so it looks fancy. Crimp the ends together with the bit overhang I told you you’d need.

14. Take your hot mix of sugary goodness and slowly pour it over your pie. You want it to seep down into the crevices of your lattice so your apples get nice and gooey with it. It’s cool if some spreads around on the top of your pie. It’s not cool if it goes over the sides and onto your counter tops so take it slow.

15. Bake in oven preheated to 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for 30 more minutes or until pie looks golden, brown, and delicious. (Mini pie should be baked for about 30 minutes at 350, that is all.)

16. Remove, cool, and eat with ice cream while warm. Or, eat for breakfast the next morning when the bacon and the apples are all melded together deliciously. It’s basically like a breakfast thing anyway because bacon.