Description
The perfect apple pie recipe! The apples are perfectly baked and the crust is flaky, buttery, and tender – no one will know it’s gluten free. This pie makes a great Thanksgiving or Christmas dessert. So Yum!
Ingredients
- Gluten Free Pie Crust (for 2 pie shells)
- 5 tablespoons ice cold water (or more as needed)
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose gluten free flour*
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon coconut sugar, or organic cane sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if flour blend you’re using already has xanthan gum in it)
- 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into half inch cubes
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoons full fat sour cream
- rice flour or other inexpensive gluten free flour, for dusting
- 1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
- Apple pie filling:
- 6 to 7 cups Granny smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced (about 6 to 8 large apples)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 3/4 to 1 cup organic cane sugar**
- Juice of half lemon
- 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted pats of butter
Instructions
- Freeze the butter: Place the cubed butter in the freezer for 15 minutes. Don’t skip this step, it’s really important the butter is super cold.
- Cut the butter into the flour: Place the flour, salt, sugar, and xanthan gum (if using) into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to incorporate the dry ingredients together. Add half of the cold butter cubes into the flour, pulse only a few times. Add the remaining butter and pulse until the butter is about the size of peas.
- Incorporate the wet ingredients: Add the rice vinegar, sour cream, and 3 tablespoons of the ice water to the flour. Pulse a few times until incorporated. Add the remainder of the water and pulse until small crumbs form or a dough ball forms. Take some of the dough and squeeze in in your hands, if the dough sticks together then it’s ready, if it looks dry and crumbly add a little more water at a time.
- Wrap and freeze: Turn the flour out onto a floured, flat work surface. It will be a crumbly mess, but that’s okay. Use your hands to form the crumbs into a dough ball.. Use rice flour (or other gluten free flour) if it’s too sticky or add splashes of ice water if too dry. Divide the dough into two even disks and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Freeze for at least 2 hours before you work with the dough. OR freeze it for up to 6 months. If using the dough the next day then you can keep it in the fridge overnight.
- Make the apple pie filling: preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and pull your dough out of the freezer/fridge to defrost for about 15 minutes. Place all of the ingredients for the pie filling into a large mixing bowl, EXCEPT for the butter. Stir until well combined. Set aside.
- Roll out dough: Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper. Dust your rolling pin and top of the dough with rice flour or other GF flour. Roll from the center out, until you have a nice even crust that is about 1/4 inch thick and larger than your 9 inch pie plate. Your dough may crack, that’s okay, use your fingers to pinch it back together as best as you can. Use the parchment paper to flip the crust into the pie plate, peel off the parchment paper and adjust the crust as necessary. Cut off excess crust, leaving some extra for crimping. If there are any cracks you can patch them up with the excess dough.
- Fill pie: Transfer the apple filling to the pie plate withthe bottom crust. Scatter the pats of butter on top of the filling. Brush the beaten egg on the edges of the bottom crust (this helps to seal the bottom and top crusts together).
- Roll out the second dough: Follow the same directions for the bottom crust.
- Crimp the edges: Pinch together the top and bottom crusts together and crimp as desired. Cut off any excess dough or fold it under for a thicker crust.
- Egg Wash the crust: Brush a light layer of the beaten egg over the top and edges of the crust, helps the crust to turn golden brown. Use a sharp knife to cut 4 slits in the center of the crust so that steam can escape.
- Bake the pie: Cover the edges of the crust with foil or a pie shield, place the pie on a baking sheet lined with foil to catch any spills. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling up and your house smells amazing!
- Cool: Allow the pie to cool for at least 4 hours. Don’t cut into it warm it will fall apart and the juices will run out. It’s so worth the wait. Store leftovers, covered at room temp for 2 days. After 2 days transfer to the fridge for a few more days.
Notes
* I highly, highly recommend using Cup4cup multipurpose gluten free flour, it yielded the flakiest and most tender crust. It wasn’t grainy, or tough. Cup4cup can be a little on the pricey side, I found it to be about half the price on Amazon. Another good place to look is Vitacost.com. Really, how often to do you make pie? When you do, you want it to be really good, it’s worth the splurge for the flour.
I also tested this recipe with King Aruthur’s All purpose gluten free flour. It was harder to work with. It yielded a tougher crust than cup4cup. In a pinch it was okay, but I still recommend cup4cup.
If you don’t need to make this recipe gluten free then you can use regular all purpose white flour and omit the xanthan gum, sour cream, and rice vinegar and follow the remainder of the recipe as is.
**Normally I use coconut sugar in place of regular sugar but I found the caramel flavor of the coconut sugar to overpower the apples. I preferred the pie made with organic cane sugar. Of course, it was still good with the coconut sugar, if you want to go the refined sugar free route.
Crust recipe is adapted from Just a Pinch, originally adapted from America’s Test Kitchen
