How to make homemade apple pie filling
My mom makes the best apple pie. We have always loved it. I was talking to her and asked her how she makes it taste so good. She said "I used canned apples." HA! All this time we thought it was some great secret and it was just canned apples!
If you are like me and have fresh apples piling up everywhere, here is a recipe I love that tastes just like homemade and freezes really nice too. I keep bags of it in the freezer to pop into a pie crust when I need it. Make this now and have it ready for those more hectic days during the holidays when you need a quick dessert or apple pie.
Part of the reason canned apples sometimes taste better is because the apples are fully cooked and nice and tender so make sure your apples are well cooked.
This apple pie filling can be slow cooked in a crock pot on low until apples are tender or cooked as the recipe says in a Dutch oven.
Apple Pie Filling
9 cups baking apples (I use what I have for apples), peeled, cored & sliced
1 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
5 cups water
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
Toss apples with lemon juice and set aside. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a Dutch oven and bring to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add apples and return to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until apples are tender (6-10 minutes). Cool for 30 minutes. Then ladle into freezer containers or bake in pies. Makes enough for two 9 inch pies.
-Jill
photo by: theleggett
Sounds great, I will have to give a try with the new johthans that are coming in the store.
Justed wanted to say that I have really enjoyed your newsletters and blogs. Keep up the good work!
My suggestion is to freeze the pie filling in the shape of your pie plate, by lining the bottom of the pie plate, placing the fruit in, freezing, then removing the frozen fruit and putting it into a ziploc baggie. Then, when you want pie, just pull it out, place it in the pie plate with pie crust, and bake! You don’t even have to defrost it!
Last year my neighbors and I made a very similar pie filling, just about double this, many times over and canned it all. A quart fills a square pan, add your favorite topping and you’ve got cobbler or crisp in addition to pies.
I agree with the freezing to shape of your pie pan…what I did was place the gallon freezer bag in the pie plate, filled it, and placed whole thing in the freezer the next day I popped the bag out of the pie pan and ta da…ready made pie filling to fit the pie and ready to go when needed.
I like the freezing in the pie plate idea. Great.
I made the Apple Crumble Pie recipe from the cookbook over the weekend. SO GOOD!
This looks like just what I need, today! Tons of apples (well, not tons…) and I want to freeze apple pie filling. Using the crock pot will be terrific. Thanks! P.S. I just tweeted this, too.