Baked Apple Dumpling Pie
"If this pie sounds like a cross between baked apples and apple dumplings, well, it is. It's baked with a top pastry only, which molds itself around the apples so handsomely that I don't even bother to invert the pie, lest the pastry vanish beneath the apples. I use Golden Delicious apples here because they hold their shape well. They’re halved, cored, and placed in the pan in a pool of melted butter, brown sugar, and raspberry preserves. A raisin-brown sugar-walnut mixture is spooned into the hollowed cores, à la baked apples, then the pastry is draped over the top, and the pie is baked. Since this bakes up in individual mounds, you don't slice it like a regular pie. Rather, you scoop out the mounds — which look like halved apple dumplings — and serve them with the pan juices. Excellent alone, but even better with chilled Vanilla Custard Sauce...."