There are quite a few apple festivals and farmers markets within 10 minutes of where I live, it’s apple-lover’s dreamland in the fall. I love to preserve some of that fresh-picked freshness in apple pie filling. I almost always have a jar on hand ready for an apple pie at a moment’s notice.
The apple pie filling I am sharing with you today is truly an award-winner;ย it’s from a dear friend she shared with me back in 1992.ย It’s a long story, but on a day when I really needed some love, my friend Sheri showed up with an apple pie like I had never had before. ย She then proceeded to can/preserve all of the apples I had hand picked from an orchard that week. She did more than lift my spirits that day, she inspired the best apple pie filling, in my humble opinion, on this planet. ย Dare I say, it’s nearly perfect. Words cannot fully describe the mouth-watering experience that day.
It starts with a combination of 3 varieties of apples: Gala, Northern Spy, Orondo Rose or Granny Smith.ย Two varieties will do if you can’t find a third you like.ย Northern Spy is my favorite (harder to find too)! These are firmer & a bit more tart than Granny Smith. As mentioned, the apple filling also calls for apple cider therefore, I try to find a cider made with a different variety of apple. So, really, there are 3- 4 varieties of “apples” loaded in each pie.
The complexity of different apple varieties truly ups your apple pie game, whether you are making preserved filling or straight up pie.
For filling, which I lovingly call “goo”, the cider and sugar mixture is cooked on the stove top. It loses its opaque color to an autumn translucent color similar to melted caramel. The color may vary slightly depending on the apple cider used.
Drain the apples and fold them into the apple cider filling. This is for a single pie which would fill one quart jar if you are canning/preserving the filling.
Time to get baking….!!! Save that last slice for yourself!
For gluten free use my Gluten Free Pie Crust made with my All Purpose Gluten Free Flour. It’s a one-to-one trade off with all purpose flour.
Classic Apple Pie Filling
Equipment
- Pressure cooker or water bath canner if preserving apple pie filling (directions below).
Ingredients
Apple Pie Filling
- 5 cups sliced peeled, cored tart apples, 2 to 3 varieties (Gala, Northern Spy, Granny
Smith, Orondo Rose) - 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup (Clear Jelยฎ)** food starch or Tapioca starch
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 3/4 cup apple cider (for better flavor use a cider that has different apples)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- dash of salt
- 1 tablespoon butter
Grandma's Pie Crust (makes a double crust 9-inch pie)
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1/2 cup cold water
Instructions
Filling:
- Peel, core & slice apples, place in large bowl of water
with 2 tablespoons of salt (stops oxidation while preparing filling). - In a sauce pan combine sugar, food starch, cinnamon, nutmeg,
apple cider, lemon juice, and salt; cook and stir constantly over medium to
high heat, until mixture begins to bubble and loses the opaque color and starts
to turn translucent (it will look like melted caramel). - Drain apples and fold into hot filling.
Pie Crust:
- In a large bowl using a pastry cutter or large serving fork, cut in all dry ingredients until crumbly. Add cold water all at once and give a few stirs, just until forms a ball (do not kneed or over mix).
Pie Assembly
- Divide dough in half (this will be rather soft). Roll out half of the dough about 1-1/2 inches larger than circumference of pie plate. Roll dough up onto rolling pin and unroll into pie plate.
- Pour filling into prepared pie crust and dot with butter
- Brush the edges of the pie crust with egg wash or water, and roll out the other half of the dough and place on the top crust.
- Trim and crimp the edges and cut vents into pie to allow steam to escape.
- Bake 55 to 60 minutes @ 350 F.
Canning/Preserving Apple Pie Filling
- Follow recipe above (1 apple pie filling recipe makes about
1 quart pie filling). Fill jars with hot filling and process as below: - Pressure cooker: 15 pounds pressure for 0 minutes, 10 pounds pressure for 15
minutes OR Water Bath Canner: 25 minutes
This is by far my favorite apple pie! Linda gave me the recipe about 20 years ago! Itโs still my go to. Funny story, I was living in Utah at the time and she had a bunch of Clear Jel leftover from when she made the apples so she sent it to me in the mail. We joked that we would be busted for sending ( what looked like) drugs in the mail. Lol.
I do remember that…evidently the feds didn’t catch on to us!
It was extremely delicious. I was only able to find Gala and Granny Smith apples, and I used the Minute Tapioca for the starch. I think my pie dish is too big, though. I had close to 6 cups of raw, cut apples, and it was still flat on the top, no bulge.
I made the pie, but cannot post a photo.
Did you love it though? I will have to check a setting to see how to let you upload a photo.
TEARS!! I am shedding tears of pie desire!! I just might make this one. Maybe.