The BEST Apple Pie With Caramel Apple Sauce
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 75 minutes plus 2.5 hours chilling time
Cooking time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- 300g/10.6ozs. flour
- 50g/1.7ozs. sugar
- 1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 300g/10.6ozs. butter cold, cubed plus extra for greasing the pie dish
- 112ml/3.8flozs. water
Filling
- 2kgs/4.4lbs apples
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1 cup/211g/7.4ozs. brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Pinch salt
- 1/2 cup/100g/3.5ozs caster or super fine sugar (optional for sweeter pie)
- 30g/1oz. butter, cut into small cubes
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 egg beaten, for egg wash
Step 1 - Make the pastry as it will need to rest for 1 hour. Process the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt together in a food processor until combined. Add in butter cubes and process until you get a fine, sandy texture. Empty this mixture out onto a clean surface and add just enough water to bind it together (you may not need to use it all). Divide into 2 portions and wrap and rest for 1 hour.
Step 2 - Fill a large cast iron pot halfway with water and squeeze the lemon juice into it. Peel and core all of the apples and slice into half moon crescents placing them in the lemon water. When finished, drain all of the apples and add the brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
Step 3 - Bring apples a simmer and cook the apples until they can bend but are not mushy or too soft. While they are cooking, gently with a silicon spatula (a wooden spoon isn't ideal for this task) bring the cooked slices to the top and take them out moving the uncooked apples to the bottom of the pot. There will be liquid released from the apples and this will cook the apples at the bottom. It should take around 15-20 minutes in total. Cool the apple slices on two trays making sure that they're drained of liquid.
Step 4 - Once all the apples are cooked, sprinkle the two trays with the extra sugar if you want to make it a sweet pie (I didn't add this but if you like a sweet pie you may want to do this). Also take the remaining apple caramel off the heat and reserve. You can do this step ahead of time and keep the cooked apple slices in the fridge.
Step 5 - Butter a deep pie dish well on the base and sides. Take out the pastry 10-15 minutes before rolling out to let it come to temperature which makes it easier to roll. Flour a surface and then flour the top of the pastry and your rolling pin and roll out so that it can fit up the sides of your pie dish. Fold the pastry in half and then gently place it on the greased pie dish. Take the cooled apples and begin stacking them on top of each other until you've used all the apples. Dot with the butter and lemon zest. Glaze the edge of the pie with egg wash.
Step 6 - Roll out the other portion of pie dough as you did the previous round and carefully lift and place on top of the apples and press down on the sides and trim the edges and then crimp the edges. Brush with egg wash and cut a vent hole in the top with a sharp paring knife. Rest this pie in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.
Step 7 - Preheat oven to 180C/350F and bake the pie for 45-50 minutes. Allow to cool in the dish and then serve with ice cream.
Step 8 - If you want extra apple caramel sauce, add 2/3 cup of water to the remainder of the apple caramel and 1/2 cup of brown sugar and bring to a boil and then simmer for 3-4 minutes until slightly syrupy. The caramel will thicken on cooling.