Homemade Apple Pie

Crust

1. Pour flour, powdered sugar and salt into a food processor.  Pulse a couple of times to mix.
2. Place very cold small pieces of butter into the food processor and pulse about 20 times or just until slightly combined but in small pea sized pieces. 
3. Gradually add 3 Tablespoons of ice cold water and pulse, pinch a piece together in your fingers.  If they hold together well you do not need to add any more water, if they just crumble and fall apart, add another spoon of water.  Repeat with the remaining water but check before adding each time.  You do not want your ingredients to warm up and form a ball.  This can cause a chewy crust instead of a nice flaky one.
4. Place a piece of wax paper down and dump mixture out.  Gather dough together and make a ball.  Divide into 2pieces and press into a small thick circle. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap or put in a small ziplock bag with air removed. 

Filling

1. Place thinly sliced apples in a bowl and pour sugar over them, try to get sugar between slices. Squeeze the lemon over them and let sit 15 minutes until a lot of juice collects in the bottom of the bowl.
2. In a medium sauce pan melt the butter, then carefully drain the juice from the apples and add the juice to the pan.
3. Whisk the apple cider, cornstarch, apple pie spice and salt together and add to the sauce pan making sure to continue to whisk as the liquid thickens.
4. Remove from heat as soon as itbegins to thicken.  It will continue tothicken as it cools.

Pie

1. Spray a pie pan with non-stick spray.
2. Dust a small amount of flour on apiece of wax paper and place one of the pieces of pie crust on the flour.  Place another piece of wax paper on top and press down.  Roll out crust into a flat round shape.  Place pie pan upside down on rolled out crust making sure crust is larger than pie pan. 
3. Gently pull off top piece of wax paper and place pie crust in pie pan.  Carefully pull the wax paper from the pie crust. If pie crust tears a little, just press together well.  Make sure pie crust is snuggly in the bottom and corners of the pie pan and overlaps the top edge of the pan.  Do not cut off excess.
4. Place apples in the pie.  There should be enough to be domed above the pie pan.  As they cook they will settle and sink.
5. Pour thickened sauce around the apples.
6. Remove second pie crust and rollout as before.  You can cut strips and do a basket weave or leave as is and just cut slits so air and steam can escape. Place top crust evenly over the pie and crimp the edges or use a fork to seal the edges.  Take a sharp knife and gently cut around the outside edge to remove excess crust.
7. Cover with tin foil and place in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes or overnight.  This step is important for a flakey pie crust.
8. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
9.  Remove pie from refrigerator and take off foil, saving for later.  Mix the egg well and brush around the pastry.  Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
10. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Turn down oven to 350 degrees and cover pie with tinfoil. Bake an additional 40-50 minutes, checking pie occasionally. Pie is done when juices in the MIDDLE of the pie have bubbled for five minutes.
11. Remove pie from oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes to help juices thicken.
12. Serve with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or caramel sauce.