My Favorite Apple Pie Recipe - Getting Down with the Pillsbury Doughboy

The caramel apple pie seen in this video recipe was used as a test for Pillsbury Pie Crusts. I've wanted to give them a try, so I could post a review on my American food site. I had heard anecdotal evidence that they made a very respectable crust, and wanted to see for myself. And, I felt like pie.

If you're going to test a pie crust, you have to go with the quintessential pie…apple. But, I didn’t make the traditional apple pie, I went with this caramel apple recipe which is super easy, but very unusual in its construction. It contains no flour or other starch in the filling to bind it together. The texture of the filling is basically caramelized apples, glued together with a very glossy, very clean, just thick enough, apple syrup.

I leave the red peel on the apples in this pie, which not only adds nutritional value, but also gives the filling a beautiful color. I used Gala apples, and after the pie was cooked, the skin was perfectly tender, and almost disappeared into the filling. Be sure to let this pie cool completely! Since there is no starch to bind the apples, the caramel/apple syrup in the filling will not set while warm.

To me, this is the purest and most intensely flavored apple pie recipe there is. The interesting thing about this recipe is the way the caramel sauce is poured over the apples and the lattice crust. You know how with a traditional apple pie some of the apple juices will caramelize as it bakes and bubble out of the pie and bake into and onto the flaky crust? You know how awesomely chewy-flaky-sticky-crumbly that part is? That's how this whole pie is. Enjoy!



Ingredients:
4-6 large red apples, sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 tbsp unsalted butter
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup water
1 package Pillsbury Pie Crust, or pie dough for a double-crust 9" pie