Apple season is here! If you’ve ever gone apple picking, or even picked up a bag from the local market of freshly picked apples, you might realize you have more than plenty to make all the apple-themed recipes you can come up with. I have a fantastic recipe for an apple pie which includes plenty of sugar. If you want that one, email me. This one, it’s on the healthier side to keep with My Whole Well-Being theme of Nutritiously Well-Fed.
To begin, get your apples! Any way you can which is pretty easy around here.
You’ll need a pie pan to bake it in and we’re going to make the crust homemade so you know exactly what you’re putting into your apple pie.
All the familiar flavors of apples vanilla extract and cinnamon, sweetened with date sugar and a touch of maple syrup. The healthiest part, besides the apples, the gluten-free amaranth crust!
Amaranth is kind of like quinoa with it’s protein and nutrition, paleo approved, it’s great for a gluten-free eating and is high in certain essential amino acids. A higher protein value than regular wheat flour, oats, rice and rye. Amaranth awesome. Image below courtesy www.herbazest.com Click on that link, great write-up on all the great benefits of amaranth!
You see the coconut and almond flour in the pic below, we’ll use a bit of both or either to make some of the crumbly filling. That and some pasture butter, date sugar a touch of maple syrup mixed with vanilla and cinnamon. You’ve got your delicious amaranth apple pie!
To make your gluten-free protein-packed crust, combine the amaranth flour with coconut oil, eggs and a bit of salt. Below I was making a coconut flour crust at the same time to see the difference. You can see the amaranth is more doughy and better to from a nice pie crust. Both taste great if you ask me.
Next, slice the apples to edible bit-size pieces to pour into your crust to be the apple filling.
I like to pour them into the pie crust first to see how many I have and how many I may need.
Next, to get that sweet apple pie filling, we’re going to use some date sugar with just a touch of pure maple syrup. First, melt half cup of kerrygold butter. Then add some date sugar, pure vanilla extract and cinnamon. Date sugar is just dates, made into a sugar! Better than regular refined sugar as it contains nutrients, vitamins and is a natural sweet sugar.
Mix all ingredients together in a sauce pan and heat so everything blends nicely. Depending on how much date sugar you add, you could get some clumps that fall into the pie rather than a pour. This depends on what you want your pie consistency to look like. I’ve done both and mine usually is a bit in the middle, some sweet pasture-raised vanilla cinnamon butter liquid pours to fill the pie while clumps mixed with coconut flour and apples are what creates the pie itself. Adding a touch of maple syrup to the mixture will allow it to have more of a liquid pour.
Mix a bit of coconut flour with the date sugar mixture and then add the sliced apples in a large bowl. Combining all ingredients, pour into amaranth pie crust to be put into the oven to bake!
One time I made a pretty display of sliced apples on top, for show.
Bake at 325F for about 35 minutes depending on your oven. I keep it low and bake it for about a half an hour so the apples and crust bake but you want to make sure you don’t burn the date sugar and filling, which in the pic below you can see I almost did in some spots.
A better version below shows how it came out perfectly, so you might have to estimate it.
And there you are! A fantastic pie that is sweet with apples and date sugar, with that seasonal flavor of cinnamon and vanilla! The crust is perfect!
| Prep Time | 15 mins |
| Cook Time | 35 mins |
| Servings |
slices
|
- 1 c amaranth flour
- 1 egg
- 1/3 c coconut oil melted
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 c pasture butter
- 1/2 c water
- 1/2 c date sugar
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1/4 c coconut flour
Ingredients
Amaranth Pie Crust
Date Sugar Apple Pie Filling
|
|
- In mixing bowl combine ingredients for pie crust. When it reaches a nice consistency, roll into a ball and then flatten out into a pie pan
- Preheat Oven to 325
- Slice apples enough to fill pie pan
- Combine water and butter in sauce pan and melt
- Add date sugar and vanilla and cinnamon
- Add maple syrup and stir until ingredients are a nice consistency
- In large bowl combine apples with coconut flour and date sugar mixture, stirring to coat.
- Pour into pie crust
- Bake for 35 minutes