What are your favorite apple varieties for making apple pie? I searched but could not find a prior thread on this subject.
I read great things about Monark, Aunt Rachel, Magnum Bonum, Boskoop, Hunge, Yates, Goldrush, Virginia Beauty and Freedom, but my grafts have not fruited yet.
My favorites would be Karmin DE Sonnaville or Yellow Newtown Pippin. (Bad spellcheck)
I got enough Bramley’s Seedling apples from my tree this year to make exactly one pie. It was pretty darn good. Its supposed to be the quintessential English cooking apple, which means its sharp and cooks down soft (I won’t make any dental jokes).
My wife made a German apple cake with, I think Dutch Mignonne, a few years ago which was quite good. It was recommended as a good cooking apple from amongst the heirlooms that were available at an event.
This will be an interesting thread. I have only tried the traditional Grannie Smith which was very good. When I get enough fruit from my orchard I would like to try Empire, Gold Rush, and Pink Lady… I think that these will be better pie apples soon after being picked.
Old fashioned Rome Beauty (not the Red Rome you see in the supermarket) makes the quintessential spicy pie that you can smell two blocks away while its baking. For you Southerners, Anna is a force to be reckoned with in the pie world.
We also have Bramley, which makes an applesauce that will blow your head off, quite a bit more intense than Americans are accustomed to. Oddly enough we harvest Bramley in September 110+F heat and it’s still really good.
I just made a pie using local (not my own) MacIntosh. (Used a little less sugar than normal, a grating of lemon zest, teaspoon of vanilla.) I like Liberties for pie. But I understand that Caville Blanc is the go to; I’d love to have a chance to find out -in a year or two I might!.
This link takes you to the best pastry crust I have ever encountered, and it’s easy to make and easy to clean up after:
Try it. You can thank me later.
;-)M
Mark- I will try your recipe this fall. Thanks.
I haven’t tried any heirloom or fancy varieties, but personally, I don’t think the best pies come from a single apple. I like my pies 1/3 soft cooking apple, 2/3 crisp sweeter apple. For me, the perfect pie has defined slices with noticeable tooth snap on the bite surrounded by apple that has cooked into mush. We typically blend Gala with Macintosh.
Hopefully, this year will get me a few apples from my yard so I can have more creative answers to this question. Apple pie is one of the few things that I will eat myself ill on, so I am ready to do the research…
Mine is Antonovka. It is sour, aromatic, with high pectin content and it gets half mushed when cooked, doesn’t require starch added. My mother used to make preserves from skinned Antonovka and a little sugar, then used it in the pies in winter. It was delicious.
Apple author Tom Burford recommends combining several varieties to get four components he says make a great pie: acid, sugar, tannin and aromatics.
I prefer acidic apples for pie just to cut the sweet sugar. I made a pie this fall out of what I thought was Newtown Pippin apples but now I’m thinking it may be Granny Smith. It was delicious.
I agree with a mix of apples. I do the same with applesauce. I like GoldRush, Blenheim Orange, Reine des Reinettes, Golden Delicious and its relatives (Hooples, Rubinette, Freyburg, etc).
Cortlands.
I prefer the Rhode Island Greening, described in The Apples of New York: “It is generally regarded as one of the very best cooking apples grown being almost the peer of Esopus Spitzenburg and decidedly superior to Baldwin for all culinary purposes. It is also very good in quality for dessert use. Hovey well remarks . . . ‘As a cooking apple, the Greening is unsurpassed . . . .’”
I baked an apple pie with northern spy, enterprise, Granny Smith, Goldrush and Jonagolds and it came out wonderful.
First year with growing Northern Spy. What a great eating apple.
I wish I could grow Spy, its a unique apple but it doesn’t like hot weather.
I have had pretty good luck with Spigold which is similar. The only downside I have had with Spigold is lack of production, like most triploids it takes longer to settle into production and prefers making piles of wood instead.
Well, I decided to bake a pie today and although I have a bunch of Macs I went to the store and bought a Golden Delicious, a Braeburn, a Granny Smith, and a Jonagold. The pie’s in the oven and I’m going to give it away, but I could tell by the smell it will be a good filling.
Incidentally, I followed the procedure for pre-cooking the apples that the pie crust lady at completelydelicious.com (above, in my earlier response) gives. Too bad I won’t be sampling the pie, but I bet they’ll like it. Sorry I can’t post a pic. That crust really does look beautiful.
Like with our cider, we generally use a mix of rugged apples: Russets, Yellow Newton Pippin, Ashmead, Spitz, Wickson, etc, which tend to make pie and crisp on the tart side. We haven’t tried using a lot of bittersweets since we usually grind up all the ones we get for cider. Generally build on a foundation of Calville Blanc because it holds up well as it cooks. ~20% Redfield in a pie makes it look amazing.
I think you definitely want plenty of flavor. I also like a fair bit of acid in pie. Sugar can come from addition rather than in the apple itself. A bit of tannin adds some complexity. A few years back I made mini-pies with about ten different apples, to individually evaluate their pie properties. I wish I had taken better notes! I made one with cider apple bittersweets (probably kingston or dabinett) and it wasn’t too good, so too much tannin is not desirable.
As Ben (fiveio) says, a portion of Redfield is a great addition to pie, with lots of acid, a little tannin, and a great red color.
There seems to be a wide range of individual tastes when it comes to texture. The British consider Bramley the perfect cooking apple and indeed the flavor is great if quite acidic when cooked. Texture wise, I’ve not experienced any apple which so completely turns to mush on cooking excepting Mac. So I guess that is what the British like in a pie filling?
The quintessential French cooking apple on the other hand is Calville Blanc d’Hiver. It becomes softer when cooked of course but holds shape quite well and has a wonderful flavor and enough acid to be balanced. Supposedly Rein des Reinnettes is another top continental cooking apple so I imagine it’s properties might be similar.
A mix is good for both flavor and texture. I also like the approach of having some mush cookers to fill in the space around the more firm cookers, as someone mentioned above.
Golden Russett and Roxbury Russet make great single variety pies, being a well balanced apple, and are less juicy than some varieties so your pie doesn’t get too soggy on the bottom. Given a choice I think they would be even better with an acid booster like a Bramley or Redfield thrown in. They do turn brown very quickly after peeling, but I personally don’t mind that.
If I have time, I like to mix the apples with the sugar and spices, but NOT the cornstarch. Let sit for an hour, then pour off the liquid. Boil down to syrup on the stove, pour back over apples, then mix in thickener. This helps a lot with soggy bottom crust. Cutting back the sugar and adding a tablespoon of boiled cider also improves filling taste.