Apple Pie

It's finally officially fall now, and I'm super excited about it. The weather is perfect, the leaves will be turning soon, and there are so many great fall desserts to make (and eat!).

My first fall-inspired project was this old fashioned lattice apple pie. After picking up a few pounds of locally grown apples at Boyd's last weekend, I was ready to make my very first made-from-scratch pie.

First things first, I whipped up some dough for the pie crust using my food processor and this recipe. After a slight mishap (6 cups of water is definitely not the same thing as 6 tablespoons!), the dough turned out perfect, and I put it in the fridge to chill for a little while.

Before making this pie, I'd always heard that the hardest part was making the crust, but making it in a food processor using the recipe above makes it super simple. The hardest part for me was peeling and slicing all of the apples up. 

The recipe called for 3 lbs of sliced apples, which amounts to about 8 cups. This is the most labor-intensive and time consuming part of making a pie.

After probably an hour and a half of peeling and cutting, and a couple of slightly sliced fingers, I finally had all of the apples I needed (and a few embarrassing bandages).

After putting all of the apple slices in a large bowl, I mixed up the ingredients for the filling and coated the apples with it. Again I used the recipe above, but I wasn't as happy with the results of the filling as I was the crust for this recipe.

I think next time I make a pie I'm going to try a different recipe for the filling and I'm going to use some kind of green apple instead of gala because although this pie was delicious, it was missing the tartness that I love in an apple pie.

But back to the baking! The last few steps were to roll out the crust, fill the pie, and make the lattice pattern on top. Once again, a slight edit I would like to make for the next time I bake a pie is to bake the bottom pie crust for a few minutes before filling it.

Overall I'd say this pie turned out pretty well for a first try, but the apples I used were so juicy that the bottom crust wasn't quite as crispy as I wanted it to be, plus as I mentioned before I think I should've used green apples rather than red. 

Anyway, that's my Kentucky Proud Pie! So if you're in the mood to try something new, pick up some fresh and locally grown fruit of your own and try your hand at making a pie from scratch... even if things don't go quite perfectly, I can almost guarantee it'll be delicious!

Boyd Orchards

This past weekend, I went home for a day. We had games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, but besides going to my boyfriend's football game at EKU, my Saturday was totally free after morning practice.

So, as soon as practice was over, I jumped in my car and headed to Lexington to pick up my best friend since birth so we could go to Boyd Orchards together. I try to make it out to Boyd's at least once every fall because they have the best apple cider and apple cider donuts ever, and my sweet tooth just can't resist. 

Boyd's is about 30 minutes outside of Lexington just past the castle in Versailles, (If you don't know what I mean by the castle, click here. It's another odd Kentucky thing) and it's locally owned and run by the Boyd family. They have fruits and veggies on sale for nearly every season, a casual café with normal lunch food as well as very tasty apple desserts (my favorite), a fully stocked gift shop, and tons of family fun activities. 

As soon as my friend and I walked in on Saturday though, my eyes went straight to the apples. It's become a bit of a fall tradition the past few years for me to pick out some locally grown fruit from either The Farmer's Market (in Lexington) or Boyd's and bake something with it, and this weekend the apples were looking perfect.

In the past I've made apple crisp, iced apple cookies, and apple spice cake with glaze, but never a pie, although I've been wanting to make one from scratch for probably two years now. So, I picked out a few pounds of gala apples and decided it was time to try it.

After getting my apples and paying for those and a dozen apple cider donuts (YUM), it was finally time to eat some lunch from the Apple Café.

Hannah (my friend) got a pulled pork BBQ sandwich with chips, I got a burger, and we both got hot apple cider. The weather turned so early this year, it was actually a little chilly when we went and the cider was even better than usual.

Also, if you've got an apple cider donut and hot apple cider at the same time, I totally recommend dipping the donut into the cider because it's delicious.

Anyway, enough about my eating habits and a little more about Boyd Orchards... Right now they're open Tuesday-Friday 9:30 am-5 pm, Saturday from 9:30 am-7 pm, and Sunday from 12-7 pm.


Since it's fall, they have all sorts of pumpkins, squash, and other gourds on sale as well as apples. I'm actually considering making a pumpkin pie from scratch as well since the apple pie turned out tasty (pie post totally coming later!), but even if you're not a baker there's plenty of other great reasons to visit Boyd Orchards this fall.

Here's just a few:
-Pick your own apples off the tree (because they're so much tastier that way)
-Take a hayride through the orchard
-Explore the corn maze
-Slide down the 90 foot slide
-Buy apple cider
-Drink an apple cider slushie from the Apple Café
-Pick up a dozen apple cider donuts
-Make a Jack-O-Lantern from a pumpkin picked straight off the vine

Basically, just GO! (And I hope you love it as much as I do).

Just a little extra information: To get in Boyd Orchards is totally free, and they have their own website for even more info. Link: boydorchards.com