Gluten-Free Apple Slab Pie - the easiest pie to serve ever

Y'all, that's not a heavenly constellation - it's a pie. It's a sugary, cinnamon canvas of pie crust stars atop apple caramelly goodness in the form of something I'd never heard of until recently: a "slab" pie.

Much like the name suggests, a slab pie resembles a slab and you basically make any pie recipe you have in a deep casserole dish. You can then cut the pie into more easily managed bars rather than your typical 8 slices from a circular pie. This stuff is pretty life-changing.

Since I'm an apple pie aficionado, I had some pretty big standards for making this and it had to be gluten-free to share with the hubby who also appreciates some epic pie.

So I share with you my new favorite pie recipe, gluten-free-ized:

APPLE SLAB PIE (Adapted from this recipe at AllRecipes; for a 10 x 15" pan)

Ingredients:

• 3-4 gluten-free pie crusts (we got ours from Whole Foods, you'll need 4 to create design as shown)

For the apples:

• 8 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into thin slices
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp gluten-free flour
• 1 and 3/4 c white sugar
• 1/2 tea ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tea vanilla extract

For the streusel topping:

• 1 c gluten-free flour
• 1 tea ground cinnamon
• 2/3 c butter (chilled, chopped into small cubes)
• 2/3 c brown sugar

Directions:

1. Combine apples and all ingredients under "for apples" except for butter in a bag. Allow to sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to an hour.

2. When you're apples are about chilled, go ahead and pre-heat your oven to 350F. Spray your 10 x 15" pan with a bit of Pam to prepare it for the crust.

3. Spread a bit of extra gluten-free flour on a clean, dry counter surface. Here, you will unroll two gluten-free pie crusts and reform them. Combine all the dough into one collective ball, then use a rolling pin to flatten it out. From here, you can press the crust dough into the bottom of the 10 x 15" pan.

4. Once your dough is completely covering the bottom of the pan, top with your apple mixture then with the 2 tbsp of butter (use it to dot the mixture, so cut into small cubes and place throughout to melt over top.)

5. Now mix your ingredients for the streusel and set aside.

6. If you want to create the crust details as shown, you'll repeat step 3 here using 1-2 gluten-free crusts. I did a woven design just by cutting rectangular strips and placing them over or on top of each other. I used the other half of 2 crusts to free-hand cut stars. You could also use a cookie cutter. When ready, place all your pie crust pieces on top.

7. Top your creation with your streusel mixture and place in the oven to bake for an hour or until golden and bubbly.

8. Serve as adorable square or rectangular bars with ice cream/life the good life.