Everyone Needs A Classic Apple Pie Recipe—This Should Be It
If you're searching for the perfect apple pie recipe, this classic recipe is it. Our best recipe boasts a flaky, homemade crust and a sweet, jammy filling.
Transcript
00:00 What's going on guys?
00:00 It's Justin here in the Delish Kitchen Studios.
00:03 Apple pie is without a doubt,
00:05 undebatably a top three all-time dessert.
00:08 You literally can't fight me on this.
00:10 There is a reason that it is ubiquitous
00:12 in restaurant kitchens and home kitchens all across America.
00:15 And that is one, because it's simple and easy to make.
00:17 Two, because apples are many people's favorite fruit,
00:20 if not their go-to favorite fruit.
00:22 And three, it's because when it's made well,
00:25 it can be truly transcendent.
00:28 And I know a lot of y'all think that making pies
00:30 or making apple pie in particular can be complicated.
00:32 I'm here to tell you it's not.
00:33 I'm gonna show you some tips and tricks to make it easy.
00:36 Let's get into it.
00:37 I have made many a pie video for this website
00:39 and I've said it before, I'm gonna say it again.
00:41 It's by far the most important part of pie making
00:44 is keeping your ingredients incredibly cold for your dough.
00:47 So that means your flour, butter, and water
00:49 need to be as cold as possible.
00:51 So I went ahead and put my flour and my butter
00:56 in the freezer about 30 minutes before I wanna make it.
01:00 And I also have some ice water created right here.
01:04 That is going to make our lives so much easier
01:07 to create those non-warmed, non-melted pockets of butter
01:11 throughout our dough that will melt in the oven,
01:13 expand, and create flaky layers.
01:15 Perfect pie dough.
01:16 I promise, this is like 50% of the tips and tricks
01:19 I'm gonna teach you today.
01:20 So I'm gonna open this up and we're gonna go in here
01:22 with all of our dry ingredients with our flour,
01:26 a little bit of sugar, and a little bit of salt.
01:28 Just pulse a couple times till basically
01:29 we just like whisk it all together.
01:31 Then we're gonna go in with our ice cold butter.
01:34 It should be chopped into chunks.
01:35 We're not putting in like big pieces of like sticks
01:38 of butter, we want it to be like little baby cubies
01:40 because then when we put it in the food processor
01:42 and grind it up, it's gonna create those little pea pieces
01:44 that we're looking for in a pie dough
01:46 that will help incorporate that easily into the dough
01:48 without melting it down or having big hunks of butter.
01:51 Pulse that for like 30 seconds to a minute
01:53 until you have this texture.
01:55 People use all sorts of liquids when they're making pie dough
01:57 we are just gonna be using water
01:59 and a little bit of apple cider vinegar.
02:02 Apple cider vinegar helps two things.
02:04 It helps us from overworking the dough
02:06 and it also helps us from keeping this dough from oxidizing.
02:11 If you have this in the fridge for a couple of days,
02:12 which pie dough lasts really well for like two, three days,
02:15 it will keep it from oxidizing
02:16 and oxidization leads to graying
02:18 and it will make your dough look like kind of flabby
02:21 and literally gray and gross.
02:22 So this helps from that happening.
02:24 We're gonna add these things in tablespoon increments.
02:27 So we're going with our tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
02:29 and then we're gonna go in with our water,
02:31 just a tablespoon at a time waiting for that like crumbly,
02:35 but like pie dough texture to form.
02:38 And what's nice is you don't have to worry about it
02:39 going in super, super slowly.
02:41 This looks really good.
02:42 It should still basically just look like that flour
02:45 and butter mixture, but when you put your hands in
02:47 and you squeeze the dough on your fingers,
02:49 it should make this very dry, crumbly like dough.
02:53 That's perfect.
02:54 Now we are going to turn this out onto a surface,
02:57 start making our dough, baby.
02:59 You're gonna wanna get a large enough surface
03:01 that will get all of the dough in one place.
03:04 Get it lightly floured, not too much.
03:06 Dump out all of the mixture
03:08 and kind of form it into two equal masses.
03:11 You could use a scale if you wanna go crazy,
03:13 which I sometimes do where I want it to be exact, exact,
03:16 but you can also just go by eye.
03:17 Form them into two flat discs with rounded edges.
03:21 Truly the work that you do to not overwork
03:23 while simultaneously making those circles now
03:26 will save you hard work in the long run
03:28 when you're rolling it out.
03:29 Then go ahead and cover up each disc
03:30 nicely with plastic wrap.
03:32 We have our perfect, beautiful pie doughs,
03:34 not overworked at all.
03:35 We're gonna bring them over to the fridge.
03:37 These are gonna sit in here for at least two hours
03:40 and you can't really cheat that.
03:42 Really what I prefer to do is overnight.
03:44 You could also just keep a couple in the freezer.
03:46 They last for a super long time, like truly up to a year.
03:49 Then whenever you want pie, any type of pie,
03:51 you get a good bit of berries in the summer.
03:54 If you get some awesome pumpkin or squash in the fall,
03:57 then you can pull out your pie dough and use it whenever.
03:58 So two hours overnight and then we can roll it out.
04:02 I made a swap last night.
04:03 We're gonna start only with one dough
04:05 because this is gonna be the one
04:06 that's going to provide the base of our crust.
04:09 We'll roll at the top later.
04:11 We wanna go slow.
04:12 We wanna go easy on this dough
04:14 'cause it's still temperamental,
04:15 even though it's been in the fridge over the night,
04:17 but it should have firmed up pretty significantly
04:20 and it should have hydrated more as it sat.
04:23 It's equally so that that butter cools down again,
04:25 but also so that the rest of the flour hydrates further
04:28 so that we don't get those cracks as we're rolling it out.
04:31 We're gonna roll this out on a lightly floured surface
04:34 into a 12 inch circle.
04:36 Use the ruler.
04:37 Don't just think like,
04:38 "Oh yeah, this kind of looks like a foot."
04:39 Use it.
04:40 You kinda need it to gauge just how much pie dough
04:44 you're gonna need to get over the lip of the dish
04:47 that you're using.
04:48 To transfer the dough to the pie dish,
04:51 there's a couple ways you could do it.
04:51 You could fold it in half
04:53 and then put it in the dish and unfold it.
04:54 I kinda like to roll it up over the rolling pin
04:57 and then slowly roll it over our dish.
05:00 And then we wanna gently push our pie dough down
05:03 into the corners, making sure it's flush.
05:05 Any little tears and rips are okay.
05:06 Just kinda patch them
05:08 and push them into each other very lightly.
05:10 That's it.
05:11 We don't have to crimp it yet.
05:12 We're gonna do that later with the top dough on it.
05:13 So we're gonna throw it in the fridge for a half hour
05:15 or you can pop it in the freezer for 10 minutes
05:17 if you are short on time.
05:20 We're making apple pie.
05:21 We haven't even talked about apples yet.
05:23 Guys, I love apples.
05:26 Truly have one, not every day, but at least once a week.
05:29 So an apple a week keeps you alive, so to speak.
05:32 That's my new phrase.
05:33 Okay, so apple pie.
05:35 You wanna have a mixture of apples.
05:37 I would not say that you should go with one perfect apple.
05:40 Overall, I think the best are Granny Smith,
05:42 Honeycrisp, and Gala.
05:44 Those are my three favorite baking apples.
05:46 And you wanna have a balance of tart and sweet.
05:48 So I would not, for example, use all Granny Smiths
05:51 'cause they're all tart, not as much sugar.
05:53 Honeycrisp have a good balance of both.
05:54 So I usually do about a half and half of each of these.
05:57 We're gonna peel them fully.
05:59 We're gonna take that core out.
06:00 You're gonna slice these apples not too thin, not too thick,
06:02 somewhere between like a half inch and a quarter inch.
06:05 And then we're gonna get them in a big bowl.
06:06 The best part about making an apple pie
06:08 is that the filling is so simple.
06:10 We're not baking it, we're not cooking it in any way.
06:12 We're literally dumping all the ingredients in a bowl
06:14 and then putting it in our pie.
06:15 So it's gonna be all of those sliced apples
06:18 that we just worked really hard to do.
06:19 Some sugar, a little bit of flour.
06:22 For flavoring, we're adding cinnamon
06:24 and a little bit of vanilla.
06:25 And then to amp up that acid and tartness
06:27 that's already in the apples,
06:28 we're gonna finish it off with a little bit of lemon.
06:30 That is the added benefit, at least for now,
06:32 keeping the apples from oxidizing, though.
06:34 When they bake off,
06:34 it'll make a huge amount of difference.
06:36 Mix that all up nice and thoroughly and then set it aside.
06:38 This is the last big piece of effort
06:41 that we need to do for this.
06:42 We're gonna unwrap our second and final pie dough.
06:46 Get it on a lightly floured surface.
06:48 Roll it out, same as before, in a 12 inch round,
06:51 totally even on all sides so it's not all bumpy.
06:54 This one we care a little bit more
06:55 about how beautiful it looks 'cause it's gonna go on top.
06:57 Then we're gonna get our apples
06:59 into our already prepared pie pan with the other crust in it.
07:02 Get that nice into one even layer.
07:04 We're gonna roll our dough over our rolling pin
07:07 of the one that's on the counter.
07:08 Get that up and layer it over our apples.
07:12 Once you have your second pie dough over the entire thing,
07:15 you're gonna wanna trim the top
07:17 to about like an inch of overhang.
07:20 And then you're gonna take the top dough,
07:22 fold it up and over that other dough
07:25 so that you have a clean edge on the side.
07:27 Then you're gonna go ahead and crimp.
07:29 You can crimp any number of ways.
07:31 I like doing sort of my, what I call the Pac-Man crimp
07:33 where you make your little Pac-Man guy
07:35 and you stick your thumb like it's one of the little rocks
07:37 that it's meant to eat.
07:38 Are they eating rocks?
07:39 I don't know, but that's what I do.
07:39 Your mileage may vary.
07:41 Your crimps might not be the most consistent,
07:43 but all that matters is that it's delicious.
07:45 That is my viewpoint.
07:46 So you're now gonna take a brush,
07:48 egg mixed with a tablespoon of water,
07:50 and you're gonna brush this all over the pie,
07:53 getting all the nooks and crannies.
07:54 This is what's gonna help to make this look
07:56 very golden, delicious, beautiful.
07:59 And it's also gonna help
08:00 because we're gonna sprinkle the entire thing
08:03 with some coarse sanding sugar.
08:06 We're gonna cut some slits in our dough.
08:07 That's gonna help the steam escape.
08:09 This is ready to go in the oven.
08:10 And I know y'all are thinking,
08:12 "Justin, what about the soggy bottom?"
08:15 I promise, I have a solution.
08:17 You could blind bake this.
08:18 That's a little fussy for my liking.
08:20 So a little ingenious hack.
08:22 When you're baking pie, throw a baking dish,
08:25 which you should be using anyway,
08:26 to get any drips or drops coming off the pie.
08:29 Throw it in as you're preheating your oven.
08:32 This will have a nice hot surface
08:34 right beneath your pie dish
08:36 that will get the bottom jump-started
08:39 just a little bit faster than the rest of the pie.
08:42 Really, really does help
08:43 when it keeps from getting that soggy bottom.
08:46 This oven has been preheating to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
08:51 I'm gonna get this in the middle rack.
08:56 This is gonna go 20 minutes at 425,
08:58 and that's gonna get that nice golden jump-started
09:02 on the outside.
09:02 Then we're gonna reduce the temperature to 375,
09:05 go for another 40 minutes, hour cook time total.
09:08 Americana in a plate.
09:10 That's what this is.
09:11 I am so psyched to try this out.
09:14 You know what this reminds me of?
09:17 I love Jill Rubin, my mother, more than anything.
09:21 She was not the best cook,
09:22 but she made the most amazing,
09:25 almost every fall, winter,
09:26 she'd make the most amazing applesauce.
09:28 This doesn't have the texture or feeling
09:30 or thought of applesauce,
09:32 but it's bringing me back to that warm feeling,
09:35 cold day, having an applesauce, warm and delicious.
09:38 But think of that,
09:39 then add the most delicious buttery crust on top.
09:41 That's what this is.
09:42 So yummy.
09:44 The texture of the outside is so perfect.
09:48 And I love the little crinkly, crackly sugar.
09:51 It's buttery.
09:52 She worked so hard to keep those layers and the flakes
09:55 and to do all of the throwing it back in the fridge.
09:58 It's really paid off.
09:59 The bottom is not soggy at all.
10:01 You can serve it with a lot of different things.
10:02 You could do a little bit of hand whipped cream.
10:04 You could do ice cream.
10:06 That's obviously super classic.
10:08 I know some people do like cheddar cheese melted over top.
10:10 I've never done it.
10:12 Genuinely, probably gonna take a slice home and try it.
10:14 Because I like all iterations of apple pie.
10:16 That's the truth.
10:18 Even bad apple pie is good apple pie,
10:20 but this is a spectacular apple pie.
10:23 And I hope that you've learned all the tips and tricks
10:25 to make it delicious.
10:26 So for more amazing fall dessert recipes
10:29 and incredible holiday bites,
10:30 stick around here on delish.com.
10:32 (upbeat music)
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