Apple Pie with Piper

October was my month to choose the Have the Cake challenge, and I chose apple pie. You can read the challenge here.

I've made many apple pies over the past ten years, so I can pretty much do this in my sleep. The only problem - no lard for the crust. :( Yes, after making such a huge deal about the lard, I had to make a butter-based crust because the bucket of lard in the pantry had a sell-by date of July 2009. Could I have used it? Probably. (Can lard ever go bad?) But, I'm not a girl who takes chances with expiration dates.

I made a peach pie earlier this month, which turned out okay, but not great because I used frozen peaches instead of fresh. I'd made a full crust for that pie, so I felt lazy when I got to this pie. I'd been meaning to try a lattice top this time like Tina made, but instead went with my traditional streusel top.