Best Apple Pie Recipe
If you are looking for the best apple pie recipe, look no further! Here are step-by-step pictures to teach you how to make apple pie that will quickly become a family favorite!
My Son-in-law's step-mama is an author. In fact, she's Elvis Presley's cousin...but that's a story for another time... Anyway, she was having a book signing at an Italian Restaurant called Maggiano's Little Italy. I was invited to go and since I'd never been to a book signing or Maggiano's, I figured, “Why not?”. Well, let me tell you, the food was wonderful but it was the dessert that really caught everyone's attention. They served this thing they called a “Warm Apple Crostada”. Now, they can call it whatever they want but that was THE BEST APPLE PIE I have ever had. When I left there, I was determined to figure out just how they made it. Well, this recipe is pretty doggone close.
I made it into a pie instead of individual free form pies because the dough is sticky and if it gets a little warm, it is very difficult to work with so making it into a pie makes it a whole lot easier.
CRUST:
1 cup butter, cold
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons ice water
FILLING:
3 Granny Smith apples
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup butter
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
heavy cream
Raw sugar
**Superfine sugar is finer than regular sugar but coarser than confection's (powdered) sugar. If you can't find superfine sugar, you can make some by pulsing regular sugar in a food processor. Don't pulse it too long though, or you'll have confectioners sugar
Here's what you need to do:
For the crust:
With a knife, cut the butter into 1/4" cubes. Be sure to keep it cold.
In a food processor, if possible, mix together the flour, sugar and salt.
Add the butter.
Pulse until butter is in small pieces.
Add the ice water and mix. Stop before it is a solid mass. (It's better to leave it a little crumbly.)
Dump the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap.
Press the dough together to form a square. Wrap with the plastic wrap and refrigerate until well chilled, at least an hour or two but if you want to refrigerate it overnight, that would be great.
For the filling:
Make sure that you use Granny Smith apples. If you like lots of filling in your apple pie, I recommend you double the filling ingredients.
Peel and core the apples.
Thinly slice the apples. I used a food processor.
In a large saute pan, melt the butter until foaming.
Add the sugar. Stir.
Cook and stir about 2 minutes until light brown.
Add the apples.
The sugar will clump up a little bit but that's okay, the lumps will cook out.
Cook until the apples are slightly soft, give up their juices and liquid becomes syrupy again.
Mix together the cornstarch and water.
Add the cinnamon and nutmeg, mixing well.
Add the cornstarch and water mixture.
Mix well. Continue cooking 1 minute. Remove from heat and cool completely.
When you are ready to put it together:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Turn dough out onto a heavily floured surface.
Divide the dough in half. Put one half of the dough back in the refrigerator to stay cold. Put the other half of the dough into a 9-inch pie plate. Using well floured hands, press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of the pie plate. You may need to flour your hands several times because the dough is very sticky.
**If the dough gets too sticky to work with, put it back into the refrigerator for a little while.
Add the filling.
Take the other half of the dough out of the refrigerator and roll it into a 9" round circle.
Carefully roll your dough onto the rolling pin and transfer to the pie.
Unroll on top of the pie.
Crimp the edges.
Brush the top of the pie with heavy cream.
This is Raw Sugar.
Sprinkle generously with raw sugar and cut 6 to 8 slits on the top of the for the steam to escape.
Bake in an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees F. until brown and crisp, about 45-55 minutes. Cool before trying to remove from the pan...unless of course you don't care what it looks like LOL
All that's left is to enjoy the best apple pie that you've ever had!
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Chosen as one of the 50 Best Southern Food Blogs by
If you like my website, you're gonna love my new ecookbook Tried and True Recipes from Mama's Kitchen.
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