Caramel Apple Pie with Pecan Crumb Topping
New twist on America's favorite: Apple Pie. Recipe for two pies--one to share.
Servings 12 slices
Ingredients
- 8-10 Apples Peeled, cored and sliced. See Notes
- Pie Dough for two shells
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 3 tbsp Corn starch
- 1 1/2 tsp Penzey's Apple Pie Spice See Notes
Crumb Topping
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 1/2 Cup Flour
- 2/3 Cup Butter
- 1/2 Cup Pecans
Instructions
- Mix brown sugar, salt, corn starch and spices. Pour over Apples and place them in refrigerator over night.
- The next day, heat oven to 400 degrees.
- When ready to bake, strain off liquid and boil until reduced to thin syrup. Let cool slightly before adding back and mixing with apples.
- Line two 8" pie pans with dough, and heap half of the apples in each.
- To make Topping, mix sugar, flour and butter, and pulse a few times in food processors, just until there are no large clumps. Add pecans and three to four times more to incorporate pecans.
- Scatter topping on apples in pans. Apples should barely show.
- Put pie pans on cookie sheet and insert in 400 degree oven. Bake 45-50 minutes, until topping begins to brown. Check after 30 minutes and cover edge if it is browning too fast.
- Serve pie with ice cream or whipped cream.
Notes
If you have very sweet apples, you can cut back on the sugar used. If your apples are not juicy, you may want to add some water or bottled apple juice when you are boiling down the juice.
Of course, I recommend my Perfect Pie Crust, however, feel free to use whatever pie shell you prefer. The topping is the star in this pie.
I specified Penzey's Apple Pie Spice in the recipe, but if you don't have any, you can substitute 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon; 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 1/4 tsp cardamon (if you have it on hand). The Penzey's mix is very nice and I have found that I use it in a lot of ways besides apple pie--other fruit pies, cinnamon/sugar toast, baked puddings, etc.