I've been making it since I found the recipe, much to my mother's dismay, in a True Story romance magazine when I was in high school in 1966. "Just trash!" she said about the sappy publication, but she did admit the pie was wonderful.
It's good with whipped cream or ice cream but it's just fabulous topped with a super-tasty, super-fast "homemade" apple-cinnamon Ice Cream---- the perfect combination.
APPLE CHEESECAKE PIE
Preheat oven to 350. Toss 5 medium apples, peeled and sliced thinly, with ¼ c. sugar and 2 tsp . cinnamon. Set aside. With mixer, beat 1 8-oz pkg cream cheese with 2 eggs until light. Then add ½ c. sugar, 1 tsp grated lemon or orange peel. Pour into an unbaked pie shell, top with apples, bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. The center may be slightly wobbly, but it will firm up as it cools. Cool thoroughly. Serve topped with cool whip, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or best of all, apple-cinnamon ice cream. This pie recipe is so old that it refers to lemon 'peel' instead of lemon zest, which used to be (still is?) available dried, in spice jars, and that's what I used forty years ago. Needless to say, fresh zest is better.
APPLE CINNAMON ICE CREAM
Combine 2 medium size tart apples, peeled and chopped (2 c.)with ¼ c. chopped raisins, ½ c. firmly packed brown sugar, ½ tsp cinnamon, ¼ c. water. Heat to boiling, cover and simmer 20 minutes, or til apples are tender. Cool completely. Soften 3 pints ( just leave about 1/4 of the ice cream in the half-gallon carton) vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt slightly, fold in the apple mixture well, cover & refreeze. Substitute nuts in place of the raisins if you need to, or use both, but the raisins are the surprise element. And that's a "True Story"!
