Best apples for pie?

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Janet H

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For years I've made pies with golden delicious apples with a couple of granny smiths added for tang and had a pretty good result. The goldens hold together and aren't too wet. Recently however, they have become scarcer and more expensive as growers replace their trees with more lucrative hand apples. A friend has suggested trying Gravensteins.

What sort of apples do you like to use?
 
For most of the recipe, I use Granny Smith. I also purchase about five apples of a different kind. Always one Cortland, Johathan, Empire, etc. If I am using my crowd pie plate, I will purchase no less than ten to 12 apples. For the small Pyrex, I purchase eight to ten apples, depending on the size of the apples. I purchase one non pie apple. Like ATK, I partially cook them with the sugar/cinnamon mixture just until they are warm. By then the non pie apple is soft enough to mash and break down and it helps to absorb any extra juice that may come out from the apples. I don't like to rely on corn starch or flour for thickening. I hate it when I pile the apples really high and then cut into it and find half of them have shrunk and left a large void at the top right under the top crust. Precooking the apples helps to prevent that.
 
I think a good tart apple makes the best pie. Certainly Granny Smiths. We don't usually (well I don't) mix apples. And I am in favor of traditional types, such as the Cortland and Gravensteins mentioned.

We grow Harrelson's in our orchard ( ok it's just 2 trees, but doesn't that sound la-de dah.) Crisp, tart, releases juices when baking and the sliced apples still hold their shape and don't break down. Makes excellent tasting pie. Not sure how far beyond the mid-west these apples are available. Harrelson's were developed here. They are not available year round.

I always sprinkle ~1 Tb lemon juice on the sliced apples. Because that's the way my mom did. Pretty sure not every apple in the barrel needs this, but hey, tradition.
 
Janet, I started making pies with the usual Rome or Mac/Jonathon combo. Never a fan of those, though, since they cooked down so much I felt like I was eating applesauce pie. Blech. I now almost always use Gala apples for pies. They get soft enough but still retain their body. A bit of tart, but not puckery. I'll taste a slice of apple from each one I peel and slice so I know how naturally sweet they are before adding any sugar to the bowl of sliced apples. They usually need very little extra sugar.

When we moved to our first home, there was an old apple orchard with about 15 varieties on my home-to-work route . Himself started to travel during the week, so each Thursday I would stop and buy the variety that was in harvest. I'd have a different pie ready when he came home on Friday nights. We decided that we liked apples that kept their shape more and had some texture when you bit into the pie. Since then (late 1970s), some of the apples are no longer available, and many more aren't sold out here in MA. If you feel like an apple pie bake-a-thon, you could work through all the varieties available in your area.




Whiska, I like your take on "apple orchard". ;) When we lived in OH, the foundation below the first floor was called a basement. We kept our wine down there. When we moved here, I found out they call them cellars. We now have a wine cellar. :)
 
I would sell the blood of my first born along with the wing of a bat and the eye of a newt to be able to get my hands on some Northern Spy apples for a pie. But they aren't available until late into the Fall.

One year when I was at Topsfield Fair I asked one of the growers about them. I was told that they are considered the Golden Apple of all crops. Even before it is ready for picking, it has already been sold. So around the middle of November, I start looking for that eye of a newt. That is my one stumbling block.
 
I always use several kinds of apples, Macintosh for the flavor only as they tend to dissolve to much but their flavor really adds I didn't have any one time and notice a big difference, Empire, red delicious, Macoun, Granny smith. Always good pie
New York State great apples !!!!!
 
I asked my wife, who makes awesome pies from our yearly trips to upstate NY to go apple picking, and she said there are a lot of good ones: Gala, Cortland, Fuji, Jonah, Macoun, and Braeburn.

She also likes to mix in a Granny Smith for extra tart-ness, depending on the mix.
 
I use the apples from my no-name tree to make my Swiss apple pie. I have no idea what variety it is, but the apples are nice and firm, with a sweet-tart flavor.
 
I've never made an apple pie, so I can't speak from experience, but my mom made a pretty good one, and she always used winesap apples when I was a kid. I'm not sure you can get them any more - never see them in the store anyway - but those were her favorites. Quite tart, and they held up well for cooking. Made a great apple pie.
 
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My mom used a 50/50 combination of Spartans and Granny Smith. We had a spartan apple tree so I always thought that was the reason. But at culinary school, they said that spartans are good because they are juicy but crisp so they hold up in baking and have a nice flavour. At school I made a spartan/Golden Delicious/Gala pie and it turned out amazing!
 
During the years I was raising my oldest granddaughter, she loved Granny Smith apples for eating. I got carried away one time and bought a large bag of them. I still had enough to make a small pie. In order to overcome the tartness of them, it took a lot of sugar. I put them in a bowl and added the amount of sugar the recipe called for. After about 15 minutes, I asked her to taste one piece. She said it was ok, and she couldn't taste the sugar. I knew it would need more. So I added more. After about two more taste testing, she claimed it was too sweet for her. Perfect! That is when I learned to mix the type of apples for the perfect pie.
 
My husband goes nuts-o for Apple Pie, me, meh, not so much.
A few years back I saw some cooking program on PBS, I can't recall who the chef was, but they made an Apple Crostata, now that looked pretty dang good to me.
My husband likes the crust of any pie, thick. So I winged it and came up with my own version of Apple Pie, which by the way, DH calls my Crostata, Apple Pie.

pie.jpg

But I digress.
I can't find Cortlands nor Gravenstiens here in the middle of the desert, I wish I could! When we went to Oregon many years ago, we stopped at a road side stand and bought a bunch of different fruits and veggies to take along with us on our road trip and one of the apples that I got was a Cortland. The BEST apple I've ever had.
Anywhos...
For my Apple Pies, I get Fuji Apples. They hold up nicely, give off just enough juice and have that nice even flavor of sweet and tart.
 
I like Fujis, too, K'girl. And I love crostata [emoji813] So much easier than pie!

Right?! No stressing over trying to get that danged crust into the pie plate without ruining it :LOL:
I have had a coupla fails, kinda, making the crostata, leakage issues :rolleyes:
but I truly do not care for Apple Pie in the traditional sense, but crostata I'll eat any day.
I sprinkle chopped Pecans over the fruit when it's about 3/4 of the way done and I use brown sugar for a caramel apple type of flavor profile, and I did say already, yeah that's it, I roll the dough on the thick side, pull the lip of the crust up about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way over the fruit.
Hmmm :idea: I should try this with some wild blueberries
 
Right?! No stressing over trying to get that danged crust into the pie plate without ruining it [emoji38]
I have had a coupla fails, kinda, making the crostata, leakage issues :rolleyes:
but I truly do not care for Apple Pie in the traditional sense, but crostata I'll eat any day.
I sprinkle chopped Pecans over the fruit when it's about 3/4 of the way done and I use brown sugar for a caramel apple type of flavor profile, and I did say already, yeah that's it, I roll the dough on the thick side, pull the lip of the crust up about 1/2 - 3/4 of the way over the fruit.
Hmmm :idea: I should try this with some wild blueberries
Oh yes. I like to sprinkle turbinado sugar on the edge of the crust. It stays nice and crunchy after baking :yum:
 
Gravenstiens , Signe Tillisch,Åkerö, Fillippa and Aroma are my favorites for apple pie. Pink lady does work to but they are so expensive here.
 
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