The Best Apple Crumb Pie Recipe
A Thanksgiving Favorite at our house...
Every year I have the honor of making the famous apple crumb pie for Thanksgiving. My family no longer even asks, they just assume I will make it! The real reason is, it truly is the BEST! No other recipe compares and year after year my family raves about how delicious it is. If you love apple pie, then you need to try this simple and amazing recipe. If you need a great dessert to bring to the office, Christmas party, potluck dinner, bake sale make this recipe. It looks like it is made with love and tastes like a million bucks! Add some vanilla ice cream if you like your pie a la mode or some cool whip or whipped cream makes this pie devine!!
Ingredients
- 1 pie crust (you can make your own
- personally Pillsbury does a great job!!)
- Crumb topping:
- 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 cup flour
- 6 tablspoons unsalted butter
- melted
- Filling:
- 2 1/2 pounds Macintosh apples
- 2/3 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 tablspoons flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
- 3 tablspoons cold butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and set rack to the lowest level. Prepare the filling: Use an apple peeler, corer, slicer to peel and core the apples. In bowl add dark brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and lemon zest. Toss well to coat. Next prepare the topping: combine brown sugar and flour in a small bowl. Add melted butter. Blend and set aside for 5 minutes. Prepare your crust in your pie plate. Place the apple filing into the pie crust. Then break up the topping using fingers and place all over the top to cover the apples. Dollop butter on top of crumb topping. Bake for 15 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven. Then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and move to the middle rack. Bake 20-30 minutes longer until the crust is golden and the juices begin to bubble. You may want to put a cookie sheet on the lower rack of your oven just in case the pie bubbles over, but generally that doesn't happen. Cool on a rack.
Apple Peeler, Corer, Slicer - This is a must have!
Slice the apples
Add the filling ingredients
Tools of the trade
Make sure you have the right tools for the job. A microplane or lemon zester will make zesting the lemon super easy. Of couse everyone needs measuring cups/spoons, and a pie plate.
Mix it all together
Mix together the ingredients for the crumb topping
Add filling to pie crust
Add the crumb topping to the top
Dollop the butter on top
Bake and enjoy!
Tips and Tricks...
I strongly recommend using Macintosh apples for this recipe. The original recipe called for Granny Smith, however I found that they made the pie extremely watery. The Macintosh seem to be the perfect apple!!
I prefer to use dark brown sugar in this recipe, however of course you could use light brown sugar. If you don't have any brown sugar in the house you can substitute white granulated sugar mixed with molasses. Just add as much molasses to get your desired brown sugar. The more molasses you use, the darker brown your sugar will be.
Also, I highly recommend NOT skipping out on the lemon in this recipe. The lemon adds that certain something in the background and a freshness to the pie.
One more tip: if you find that your pie crust is getting too brown, you can cover the rim of your pie plate with aluminum foil. This will prevent your pie crust from over-browning.
