Easy Homemade Apple Pie Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should you cook apples before putting in pie? ›

Should you cook the apples before baking apple pie? You don't have to pre-cook the filling before spooning it into the pie crust, but it's a quick step I recommend. Just 5 minutes on the stove begins the softening process, and also helps the flavors start to mingle.

Crust dust is a 1:1 mixture of flour and granulated sugar. When baking a pie, especially a fruit pie, a couple of teaspoons of crust dust sprinkled into the bottom of the crust will help prevent the crust from becoming saturated with juicy filling as it bakes.

You do not need to pre-bake a pie crust for an apple pie or any baked fruit pie really, but we do freeze the dough to help it stay put. Pre-baking the pie crust is only required when making a custard pie OR when making a fresh fruit pie. you should probably get: Pie weights are super helpful to have for pre-baking.

Peeled apples will give you a delicately soft pie with no tough surprises, but some people argue that you lose the apple's nutritional value once the peel is removed. Making sure you are using the correct apples – peeled or unpeeled – is a more important part of crafting the perfect apple pie.

There are a few apples that don't make the cut. While great for snacking, Gala, Fuji and Red Delicious are the most common apples that won't hold up in the oven and will give you a watery-mushy pie, tart or cake.

Some experts will tell you to par-cook apples before filling a pie by pouring boiling water over cut apples and soaking them for 10 minutes. Others say to roast them to reduce water content. Still, others say to let cut apples sit for 30-40 minutes to drain natural juices.

With docking, the holes allow steam to escape, so the crust should stay flat against the baking dish when it isn't held down by pie weights or a filling. Otherwise the crust can puff up, not only impacting appearance but also leaving you with less space for whatever filling you have planned.

Getting a brown, flaky/crispy bottom crust on your pie is all about quick and effective heat transfer. That's why aluminum or aluminum/steel pans — rather than glass or stoneware — are your best choice for baking pie. Metal, especially aluminum, transfers heat quickly and efficiently from oven to pie crust.

Line the crust with foil, parchment, or a paper coffee filter. Fill it about two-thirds full with dried beans, uncooked rice (or other uncooked grain berries), pie weights, or granulated sugar. Bake the crust in a preheated 375°F oven for 20 minutes, set on a baking stone or steel if you have one.

The key is to avoid the typical apple pie pitfalls — a soggy crust and waterlogged filling — by blind baking the crust and boiling down the juices before filling the pie. These steps add a bit of extra time but ensure a crisp and flaky crust and a cider-flavored filling that's not the least bit watery.

How to blind bake without weights? ›

Dried beans or rice works great, or you can use sugar to weigh down the parchment paper. If you use beans or rice, you can use them over and over again for blind baking - just store them in an airtight container. You cannot use them to cook with for regular recipes once you have used them to bind bake.

A combination of sweet and tart apples, tossed with a little brown sugar, salt, lemon, and cinnamon, promised a perfectly balanced filling. Precooking the apples solved the shrinking problem, helping them hold their shape in the oven while also eliminating any excess liquid, and thereby protecting the bottom crust.

Add 1 TBS of butter to the skillet. Stir apples and oil together until all the apples are coated. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring every minute or so, until the apples become soft (you may need to cover them for the last 2 minutes).

The brown apples and the fresh apples baked up equally tender and juicy and were similar in flavor, and—surprisingly—all had pretty much the same light golden color.

There's absolutely no need to stress over apple pie less than 24 hours before sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. You can prepare the pie entirely (save for baking it) and freeze the whole thing, then pop it into the oven once the turkey comes out. Or you can make the crust dough ahead, wrap, and chill or freeze.