This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of PAM Cooking Spray.

A few weeks ago, I was excited to receive an awesome package containing a couple of different cans of PAM cooking spray (baking and cooking varieties) as well as this beautiful red Le Creuset pie dish.

I was excited to dream up a delicious holiday dessert to share with you. Except that I was having a few set-backs. I don’t know if you saw my previous announcement or not, but I have been in the throes of morning sickness for the last several weeks and spending as little time in the kitchen as is humanly possible. The second issue is that I seem to have a bit of an intolerance to wheat lately and have been needing to cut back on my sugar intake. How many desserts can you think of that aren’t loaded with flour and sugar? Not so many.

BSB to the rescue! My husband is actually quite a bit braver in the kitchen than I am and has been instrumental in most of the recipes I’ve shared here in the past. If you haven’t tried his ginger molasses cookies, you are really missing out! We’ve also discovered that I can do spelt and spelt flour where I can’t do wheat. BSB has been making me freshly ground spelt bread and even spoiled me with spelt crepes on my birthday! (Yep! He’s a keeper!) I challenged him to create a spelt pie crust and he came through plus he filled it with a creamy apple pie that is perfect for the holidays!

Here we see BSB grinding the spelt, grating the butter, and prepping the apples for the pie (Cool corer slicer from Grandma, right?). If you are wondering about the blue cords sticking out of his head, our grain mill is pretty loud and BSB is always prepared–protecting his hearing with earplugs. We sprayed a light coating of PAM baking spray on the bottom of the pan before adding the crust, to make sure the pieces would come out easily and in one piece after baking. 

The thing to remember about spelt is that it has more moisture than wheat, so you can adapt lots of recipes if you adjust accordingly. It takes on a darker color, and will give more of a whole-grain flavor than traditional pie dough.

You can see this is bit of a variation on your typical apple pie. The creamy filling and spices make it just right for Christmas time.

Our inspiration recipe calls for covering the pie with pecans which sounds yummy and would be even better if you drizzled it all with caramel! Wanting a festive look for ours, BSB took extra pie dough and a cookie cutter and embellished the top of the pie with snowflakes, instead of nuts. He didn’t actually add these on until the last 15 minutes of baking to make sure they didn’t get burned.

SMART TIP: Using a light coating of PAM cooking spray on your tools before using makes for easy clean-up after the pie is in the oven. The new line of  PAM Cooking Sprays leave 99% Less Residue than other non-stick sprays so you can try it out anywhere. Because really, there is so much going on during the holidays, who has time to spend it all in kitchen cleaning up!? Wouldn’t you rather be eating the pie with your family than scrubbing the dishes?

And voila! My kids loved this pie, despite the darker color of the crust! We liked the flavor even better after it had chilled overnight than fresh from the oven, so you might want to plan to make this one a little in advance. The layers of apples are sandwiched with the sour cream filling so every bite is moist and flavorful.

See below for both recipes: The Spelt Crust and the Creamy Apple Pie. And don’t forget to enter to win your own PAM spray and Le Creuset baking dish below so you can create your own culinary masterpiece for the holidays!

Giveaway!!!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of PAM Cooking Spray.

For more information, visit http://www.pamcookingspray.com.