Just tried this pie and it turned out really well. I used a paper grocery bag and was really surprised at how evenly it cooked. We always used brown paper cut from bags when I was a child to line the outside of our christmas cake tins because the cakes could scorch from the fluctuation in gas pressure and temperature in our old Irish houses. I deviated from the filling in the recipe in that I had a jar of leftover mincemeat (for Christmas mince pies) and I lined my pastry base with that. I added a jar of my homemade apple preserve on top, squirt of lemon juice and then the crumble topping. I'm Irish and at home we make our apple tarts more on the tangy side, as opposed to the sweetness of American Pie so I thought I'd try a hybrid here. We have an apple in Ireland called a cooking apple, very, very sour, too sour to eat, so our apple tarts tend to be on the tart-sweet side. I have never been able to find cooking apples in America. I love the pastry mix, it's crumbly, slightly salty but with a nice bite to it, yum! I just sent a picture to my hubby and told him to bring home some fresh cream so I can whip it up for the pie! I wish we could upload our photos so we could all share our successes (and failures) to further our discussions. I really enjoyed reading the other bakers comments on their pies :)

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