Apple Pie
A double-crust apple pie with flaky butter pastry and a filling cooked first on the stove, so the lid sits on the apples, the base stays crisp and every slice holds.
A full, tall pie with no gap under the lid and a base that stays crisp under the knife.
Recipe inspiration
Autumn, when Granny Smiths are cheap by the bag and the oven is welcome in the kitchen again. It's a Sunday-lunch pie, a bring-a-plate pie, a pie for the friend who has just moved house. It feeds eight from one tray, travels in its dish, and tastes as good on day two.
It's also the pie that teaches pastry. Make this once and you know how cold butter, a light hand and a hot oven turn flour into flakes, and that carries straight over to cherry pie, sausage rolls and quiche.
About this dish
Apple pie is English long before it is American. The oldest written recipe, in The Forme of Cury (about 1390, from Richard II's kitchens), fills a pastry case with apples, pears, figs, raisins and spices, coloured with saffron. A Dutch cookbook of 1514 has appeltaerten with soft apple slices under a pastry top. English, Dutch and Swedish settlers took the pie to America, where apple trees had to be planted first: the only native apples were crabapples. America's first cookbook, Amelia Simmons' American Cookery (1796), prints two recipes. "As American as apple pie" came much later.
The English way was to stew the apples before baking, and that old habit is the trick here. Done right, the pastry shatters on top and stays crisp on the base. The filling is soft slices that still hold their shape in a thick, glossy, cinnamon syrup, sharp and sweet at once, never a mush and never a puddle.
Additions & substitutions
- Apples: Granny Smith alone gives the sharpest, firmest filling. Half Pink Lady or Jazz makes it sweeter and softer. Avoid Red Delicious: it turns to mush.
- Spices: add ¼ tsp ground cardamom or a pinch of cloves, or swap the nutmeg for the finely grated zest of a lemon.
- Dried fruit: a handful of raisins or sultanas, a nod to the 1390 recipe. Soak them in hot tea for 10 minutes first so they don't steal the syrup.
- Crumble lid: skip the top pastry and scatter 100 g flour, 75 g brown sugar, 75 g cold butter and 50 g rolled oats rubbed together. Bake the same way.
- Shop pastry: 2 sheets of shortcrust for the base, 1 sheet of puff for the lid. Thaw them in the fridge, not on the bench.
- Vegan: a firm plant-based baking block in place of butter, weighed the same, kept very cold. Brush the top with plant milk and 1 tsp maple syrup instead of egg.
Expert tips
Shopping
- Buy 1.5 kg of apples for 1.3 kg prepared. Peel and core lose about 15%.
- Use a metal pie dish, 23 cm and about 4 cm deep. Metal heats fast and crisps the base; glass and ceramic leave it pale.
- Unsalted butter, straight from the fridge, so you control the salt.
Preparing
- Cold is everything. Cold butter melts in the oven and turns to steam, and the steam lifts the layers. If the dough goes soft or shiny, chill it 15 minutes.
- Leave pea-sized lumps of butter in the flour. Those are the flakes. Rub it smooth and you get shortbread.
- Cook the apples just until they bend. A slice should flop over a fork but not break. They finish in the oven.
- The filling must be cold before it meets the pastry. Warm filling melts the butter and you lose the flakes.
- Bake until it bubbles. Thick juice bubbling through the slits means the syrup has boiled and set. A brown lid alone isn't enough.
Make ahead, or for a crowd
- The pastry keeps 3 days in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. The cooked filling keeps 2 days in the fridge.
- Assemble and freeze the whole unbaked pie, unglazed. Bake from frozen: egg wash, 220°C for 25 minutes, then 190°C for 60 to 70 minutes.
- Baked pie keeps 2 days covered on the bench, or 4 in the fridge. Warm slices at 160°C for 10 minutes; the microwave makes the pastry soft.
- For 16, bake two pies, not one huge one. A bigger pie cooks unevenly in the middle.
Serving suggestions
- Warm, with vanilla ice cream, thick cream or custard.
- With a wedge of sharp cheese: the old Yorkshire way, and it works.
- After a slow main: sticky ribs or a winter vegetable soup.
- For a dessert table, beside cherry pie and baked apples.
Apple Pie
Published 2 Oct 2026 · Updated 3 Oct 2026
Ingredients
Pastry
- 330 g plain flour (2 ¼ cups), plus extra for rolling
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 225 g cold unsalted butter, cubed (1 cup)
- 120 to 150 ml iced water (½ to ⅔ cup)
Filling
- 1.3 kg prepared apples (about 1.5 kg whole, 7 large), Granny Smith or half Granny Smith and half Pink Lady
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 150 g caster sugar (⅔ cup)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- 30 g butter (2 tbsp)
- 1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp water
To finish
You need a 23 cm (9 inch) metal pie dish, about 4 cm deep.
Method
- Make the pastry. Whisk the flour, sugar and salt in a big bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until it looks like coarse crumbs with some pea-sized lumps left.
- Bring it together. Drizzle in 120 ml iced water and toss with a fork. Squeeze a handful: if it holds, stop. If it crumbles, add water a tablespoon at a time. It should look shaggy, not smooth.
- Rest. Split the dough in two, one piece slightly bigger. Flatten each into a disc, wrap and chill at least 1 hour. Resting relaxes the gluten so the pastry won't shrink in the oven.
- Cook the apples. Peel, core and slice the apples 5 mm thick, tossing them with the lemon juice as you go. Melt the butter in your widest pan, add the apples, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, cover and cook over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring twice, until the slices bend but don't break. The kitchen smells of cinnamon and there's a pool of juice.
- Make the syrup. Tip the apples into a colander over a bowl. Pour the juice back into the pan and boil for 3 to 5 minutes, until it's thick and coats a spoon. Stir in the cornflour mix and boil 30 seconds more, until glossy. Fold it back through the apples. Spread on a tray and cool completely, about 30 minutes, or 15 in the fridge.
- Heat the oven. Heat to 220°C (200°C fan) with a baking tray on the lowest shelf. The hot tray crisps the base from below.
- Line the dish. Roll the bigger disc on a floured bench to a 30 cm circle, about 3 mm thick, turning it a quarter turn every few rolls so it doesn't stick. Ease it into the dish without stretching and let the edge hang over.
- Fill and lid. Pile in the cold apples, mounding them slightly in the middle. Roll the second disc to 28 cm and lay it on top. Trim both edges to 2 cm past the rim, fold them under together and crimp with a fork or your fingers.
- Glaze and chill. Cut four or five slits in the lid for steam. Brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Chill the pie 15 minutes so the butter firms up again.
- Bake. Set the pie on the hot tray and bake 20 minutes. Drop to 190°C (170°C fan) and bake 40 to 45 minutes more, until the pastry is deep golden and thick juice bubbles slowly through the slits. If the edges brown early, cover them with strips of foil.
- Cool. Leave on a rack at least 2 hours, ideally 3. The syrup sets as it cools; cut it hot and it runs.
Notes
- Hollow under the lid? The apples went in raw or undercooked. It still tastes good. Next time, cook them until they bend.
- Soggy base? A glass dish, no hot tray, or warm filling. Put the cut pie back on the hot tray at 200°C for 10 minutes to crisp the bottom.
- Pastry shrank down the sides? It wasn't rested or was stretched into the dish. Rest it the full hour and lift it in, don't pull.
- Filling runny when cut? It came out before it bubbled, or was cut warm. Let it cool fully; it often sets. Runny leftovers are good spooned over ice cream.
- Pastry cracking as you roll? It's too cold. Leave it on the bench 5 minutes and try again. Patch any tears with offcuts; nobody sees the base.
- Lid browning too fast? Lay a sheet of foil loosely over the top for the last 20 minutes.
Sources
- "Apple pie", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_pie
- "Apple Pie", RecipeTin Eats (Nagi Maehashi), https://www.recipetineats.com/apple-pie/
- "Apple Pie", King Arthur Baking, https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/apple-pie-recipe
