Someone told me once that whereas cooking is an art, baking is a science. You utilize chemistry and knowledge of how things will react when subjected to heat, and instead of being improvisational (like cooking), you’re tied to a certain combination, measured in teaspoons and cups. At least you are in the States. Grams, elsewhere, which is even more sciencelike.

I’m a really good cook. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but just to state it as fact: I’m a damn good cook. I blame it on being an artist.

By the same token, I have baking stories that would curl your hair. My family would be overjoyed to tell you about the time when I was eight and we’d just bought our first microwave oven, and I tried the recipe in the instruction booklet for making cinnamon rolls. In the microwave. At eight years old. Let us just say that hockey pucks are still jealous, and my family, still amused.

That said, every Autumn, when the weather starts to turn cool and the night air can make you think that winter’s surely only days away, I get the urge to bake something. Most of the time, that something comes out of a box, for me, because I’m aware of my own limitations.

Partially because of this project, and partially because my husband dropped the bag of apples on the ground while bringing in the groceries, bruising them and mashing them up a bit, I thought I’d try letting the Fall Urge manifest this year in a bit of Apple Science.

I surprised myself.

Not only does it LOOK like pie, but it TASTES like pie.

And the Project begins to bear fruit. Or, at least, bear fruit-stuffed pastry.

The recipe, for your own baking pleasure:

Apple Pie
serves 6

ingredients:
6 cups thinly sliced apples, peeled and cored
3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
several tablespoons of butter
1 batch of pie crust, your favorite recipe. (or from a box, if you like it easy.)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix together all ingredients except apple, butter, and crust until well mixed.

In the bottom crust, arrange a layer of apple so the bottom is covered. Sprinkle this layer with some of the cinnamon-sugar mixture, and dot this layer with butter. Add another layer of apple, more sugar mixture and butter. Repeat this until your pie crust is full or you run out of apples or both.

Cut the upper crust into lattice strips, or cover and pinch closed, cutting ventilation holes.

Bake for 10 minutes at 450 degrees. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 30 - 35 minutes.

Serve warm or cold — tastes great either way.

Mmm, science.