My Apple Pie

I've just made yet another pie, this time apple. I think I've found the recipe that'll become my signature/standard apple pie, this one was pretty good. I wanted to do apple pie differently but without going way off and adding something that'd change it too much, so I added some honey as a sweetener, which worked out lovely.
Also, I experimented with an almond pie crust, and almonds and honey work great together as well.

Crustin!

two and a quarter cups flour

half cup ground almonds

quarter teaspoon salt

quarter teaspoon baking soda

half cup shortening

seven to ten tablespoons water

one tablespoon cider vinegar

I'm planning on writing up an entry on just making pie crust, but until then, I'll do a quick one here. Mix all the dry stuff together in a bowl, then cut the shortening into cubes and cut it through the flour et al. until you've got a coarse mealy thing. Sprinkle the water on, tossing gently, until just moistened. Form it into a ball, then cover it and put it in the fridge for later.

Fillin!

five decent baking apples

juice of half a lemon

quarter cup brown sugar

quarter cup honey plus maybe an eight of a cup of honey

dash nutmeg

dash ginger

Peel and core the apples, then slice them to slightly thicker than a quarter inch and pi/2 long. Toss them in a bowl with everything except the last eight of a cup of honey, which will be added as an afterthought later. Let this sit for at least half an hour, covered.

Compilin!

the stuff from before

Pre-heat the oven to 425ºF. Drain the fluid from the apples into a pot, and heat it over medium-high until it's reduced by half. Also, add some more honey to the pot because you're worried it won't be prominent enough. Swirl the pot, but do not stir as it reduces.
Take this time to roll out half the dough, fit it to the pie tin, and roll out and cut a top crust. When the fluid's reduced, toss the apples in it, then put it in the pie, put the top cover on, cut steam vents, and put it in the oven for forty five minutes.
So, this achieved my goals of being a delicious yet slightly different apple pie which I came up with myself, so I'm very pleased. The almond crust will definitely also be used again as well. All in all, a good pie, but don't try and cut slits of approximately constant radius like I did, as that makes it hard to serve the pieces without them falling apart in the middle.