Easy Homemade Apple Pie Recipe

Our homemade apple pie recipe stays true to the traditional dessert well-loved at family get-togethers and on other special occasions. With its perfectly baked lattice crust and a mix of sweet and slightly tart apples, this homemade apple pie is sure to impress everyone.

Of course, an apple pie recipe just wouldn't be the same without a rich, flaky crust to go along with it. And while you can use a store-bought pie dough if you really want to, we are here to encourage you to make your own pie shell. It is very easy and takes no time. Make the dough the night before, and it will be ready to use in your apple pie recipe the next morning.

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What Are The Best Apples For an Apple Pie Recipe?

Half of the success of a homemade apple pie recipe is the apple pie filling. At this point, you may be asking yourself, which apples are best for making pie filling? Fortunately, there are a few varieties ideally suited to baking, and are sometimes called bake apples.

Bake apples, provide a good balance of tart and sweetness, and most importantly, hold up well under heat. In other words, they do not just liquify, but remain somewhat firm and hold their shape. Cortland and Granny Smith are two popular varieties used in baking, but you can easily mix different apples to create a sweeter flavor, as I have done by adding some Macintosh apples to the pie filling.

A few other good apple varieties include:

• Fuji
• Golden Delicious
• Gravenstien
• Honeycrisp
• Northern Spy

Of course, other varieties are excellent for baking as well, but those are the most commonly found at your local market.

Apple Pie Filling Recipe

Just about everyone I know loves apple pie! It is one of my all-time favorite desserts, especially my Grandmother's German homemade apple pie recipe. My mother made this for my brothers and me countless times. 

This is a fairly basic and easy-to-put-together apple pie recipe, especially if it's your first time making a pie from scratch. It contains no preservatives or thickening agents and is an honest, good, old-fashioned apple pie recipe.

Apple Pie Filling Ingredients

For this old-fashioned homemade apple pie filling, you will need:

• 1.5 lb Macintosh apples - peeled and cored
• 1.5 lb Granny Smith apples - peeled and cored
• 1 tablespoon butter (unsalted if you can)
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ cup organic apple juice
• 1 tablespoon local honey
• 1 lemon wedge

How to Make Apple Pie Filling

The hardest part of making apple pie filling is peeling and cutting the apples! Get all of your apples ready by washing them first to remove any pesticide residue. Yes, you are also going to peel them, but if you don't wash them first, the residue will get on your knife/peeler and then right back onto the flesh of the apples.

Once washed, I core my apples first, using an apple corer. If you don't have one handy, you can always cut the apples into quarters and then remove the core and seeds.

After the apples are all cored, I simply peel them with a vegetable peeler to reduce the amount of waste. Once the apples are peeled, I quarter them and then slice them into quarter-inch (<1 cm) thick slices. Make sure they are approximately evenly sized so that they cook evenly on the stove.

Chefs tip: After you cut your apples, place them into acidulated water. This is simply, a bowl of cold water with a wedge of lemon squeezed into it (vinegar can also be used). The acid in the lemon will prevent the apples from turning brown while you finish peeling and cutting the rest.
- Chef Markus

Now we are ready to cook the apple pie filling. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pot over medium-high heat, and then add all your sliced apples, all at once. Add ¾ cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg, and stir all into the apples.

Stir the filling occasionally as it cooks. The apples will start to release their juices. Once you have about an inch (2.5 cm) of liquid in the pot, cover the pot with a lid and turn the heat down to low.

Let the apples cook covered for about 10 minutes, then remove the lid and give them a good stir. Stirring the apples at this point will help break them down a bit. I like to keep my filling a little chunky to add texture to the finished pie, but you could cook the apples longer, until they are smooth and puree-like.

Now add apple juice, 1 tablespoon of honey, and a pinch of salt. I usually add about ½ cup of apple juice just to give the filling a little more punch and to adjust the consistency of the filling. But feel free to change the amount of apple juice to suit your taste and preferred thickness of the apple pie filling.

Cook your filling for another 10 minutes and make sure to taste it! All of the apples should be cooked and soft. Depending on how long you cook the filling, it will be thicker or runnier.

Transfer the filling from the hot pot into a bowl or other container that you can place in the fridge to cool. Stir it once in a while to help it cool faster.

Filling The Pie Crust for Homemade Apple Pie

For this part of the apple pie recipe, you will need:

• 1 x 9" (230 mm) pie shell and dough for a top cover or lattice
• 1 egg (for egg wash)

Now, I am hoping that for the homemade apple pie recipe, you will use our homemade pie dough and pie shell recipe, rather than a store-bought shell. You will need to double the amounts in the recipe to have enough dough for both the pie shell and the top lattice. Also, note that while the dough is done in a few minutes, you will need to chill it for at least 30 mins. Ideally, you have followed the suggestion and made your dough the night before you need it here.

With the dough sorted, let's get to actually making the apple pie. While the apple pie filling cools, preheat your oven to 400°F (204°C).

If you haven't done so already, roll out your pie dough and place it in a greased pie pan. I use cold butter to grease the pan. Take a chunk of butter and run it over the pan until there is a thin layer covering every part of the inside. 

Once you have rolled out the pie dough on the counter, fold the dough over on itself to move it to the greased pan without tearing or stretching the dough. Unfold the dough in the pan. Leave enough excess pie dough hanging over the edge of the pan, so you'll have enough to attach the lattice or pie top. You can always trim off the excess later!

It's a good idea to chill your pie shell before filling it. This will create a crisper crust. 30 minutes to an hour in the fridge is ideal and will be long enough to make the dough firm.

As soon as your filling has cooled, you can pour it into your chilled pie shell. Don't fill the pie all the way to the very top edge, leave about a centimeter of space at the very least. If you fill the pie to the edge, your filling may bubble over while the pie bakes.

How Do I Make a Lattice Pie Crust?

Now for the fun part - making the lattice top for the apple pie! This part may be intimidating to some, which is why I have included some simple-to-follow instructions in our apple pie recipe.

Roll out some more pie dough to the same thickness as the pie shell. It doesn't have to be round this time, just make sure you have enough length to be able to cut strips the same length as the diameter of the pie (9" / 230 mm in our case).

Brush the edges of the pie shell with an egg wash - 1 egg beaten with a splash of water. This will glue your pie dough strips in place.

Start on one side of the pie, and work your way across vertically, then horizontally, by placing the strips alternately under and over each other.  Once you have a few strips placed, you can speed up the process by pulling back the strips of dough perpendicular to the one you need to place. It takes a second to get the hang of it, but as long as the strips are going over and under each other like a weave, you are doing well.

Once the whole apple pie is covered, pinch the edges together to make sure the lattice will not loosen from the bottom shell. You can also use the tines of a fork to press the edges of the lattice to the pie crust bottom and seal the edge.

Brush the top of the apple pie with your egg wash. This will brown the top and create a wonderful golden brown crust.

Baking The Homemade Apple Pie

Bake your pie in the preheated oven at 400°F (204°C) for 40 minutes to an hour, until the top of the apple pie is nice and dark golden brown.

Take the pie out of the oven and let it cool on a wire rack. If you leave it sitting just on the countertop, the bottom of the pie will not stay crisp. It needs to cool fairly rapidly so that the pie doesn't "sweat" and get a soggy crust.

Once your homemade apple pie has cooled, cut it into 8 pieces, and serve it with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or just on its own!

More Apple Recipes

Have a craving for more apple recipes? Check out my:

• Instant Pot Apple Sauce
• Apple Chip Chicken Spinach Salad
• Gravenstein Apple Butter
• Mulled Apple Cider

More German Recipes

If you loved this German apple pie recipe, try out some of my other traditional German foods, such as these:

• Hearty German Goulash
• German Schnitzel
• Jägerschnitzel (Hunter's Schnitzel)
• Braised German Red Cabbage Recipe (Rotkohl) with Blueberries & Cloves
• German Meat Fondue (Fleischfondue)
• Spaetzle Noodles
• Käse Spaetzle with Caramelized Onions (The Ultimate Mac & Cheese)
• German Glühwein - German Mulled Wine
• How To Make German Style Sauerkraut
• German Cucumber Salad - Gurkensalat
• German Rosinenbrot (Raisin Bread)
• German Sugar Candied Almonds (Gebrannte Mandeln)

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Recipe

Old Fashioned Apple Pie

Chef Markus Mueller

A traditional old fashioned apple pie, with a simple cooked apple filling and impressive looking from scratch lattice crust.

4.56 from 9 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe Save Recipe Saved!

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course Baking - Pie

Cuisine British, Canadian, UK

Servings 1 x 9 inch Apple Pie

Calories 3030.3 kcal

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 1 x 9" Pie shell and dough for a top cover or lattice
• 1.5 lb Macintosh Apples peeled and cored
• 1.5 lb Granny Smith Apples peeled and cored
• 1 tablespoon Butter unsalted if you can
• ¾ cup Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg
• ½ cup Organic apple juice
• 1 tablespoon Local Honey
• 1 Lemon Wedge
• 1 Egg For egg wash

Instructions

 

• Filling:
• Core and peel your 3 lb of apples. Keep them in lemon water to prevent them from turning brown.
• Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a pot over low heat, and then add your sliced apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar.
• Cook the filling for about ten minutes covered with a lid, making sure to stir occasionally, to prevent scorching on the bottom. The apples should release liquid, and slowly cook down, and break up as you stir the filling. I like to keep my filling slightly chunky, but you can cook the apples until they turn into a puree.
• Add your apple juice, honey and a pinch of salt. Cook for another 10 minutes or until the desired consistency is reached. The filling should not be runny, and just slightly thick and chunky.
• Cool the filling in the fridge before using in a pie shell.
• Baking the pie:
• Fill a 9" pie shell up to within half an inch of the top edge with the cooled pie filling.
• Cover the filling with either a pie top, or create a lattice top. Then crimp the edges so they hold together.
• Brush the top of the pie with eggwash (1 egg mixed with water) for a golden brown crust
• Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F for forty minutes to an hour.
• Cool the pie on a wire rack to prevent the dough from getting soggy.

Nutrition

Calories: 3030.3kcal

Nutrition info is auto-generated. This information is an estimate; if you are on a special diet, please use your own calculations.

Keyword How do you make a lattice top for pie?, what are the best apples for baking?

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