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This Apple Butterscotch Pie is absolute heaven! Lightly spiced apples baked inside a flakey all-butter pie crust with a homemade brown sugar butterscotch sauce!
I hope that eating more pie was your New Year’s Resolution, because I just got a little crazy with the pie baking!
I waited a full 10 days before posting sweets, which I feel should be a socially acceptable time for everyone to recover from the holidays. No?
Well hurry up because this apple butterscotch pie is beyond divine!
Sweet and tart apples baked to perfection with my butterscotch sauce all encased in a flakey pastry. You could also make a mini version by adding butterscotch sauce to these apple hand pies!
All I ask is that you save a little of the brown sugar butterscotch sauce to drizzle (or pour) on top! Swoon.
Dicing the apples into smaller pieces allows the filling to cook at the same rate as the crust, so you don’t have to pre-cook your filling. Most of the apples are soft and supple but some have retained a little bit of bite so that you aren’t just eating applesauce. Personally if I wanted an applesauce pie, I would just pour applesauce in a pie crust and bake it. I like the fruit to retain its shape and texture but be soft.
Butterscotch sauce is like a caramel made with brown sugar instead of white and it is perfect when paired with the lightly spiced apples. In each bite you taste butterscotch, apples, cinnamon and just a hint of cardamom.
Cardamom and cinnamon give this pie a surprising depth of flavor. And butterscotch? Well, welcome to your new baking obsession. Once you open the door to butterscotch, might I suggest you make these butterscotch brownies, butterscotch pudding and butterscotch cookies next? For science? For science!
A little bit of lemon keeps the filling from being saccharine sweet. You’re welcome.
Now stop thinking about your Resolutions and make this pie!!
Apple Butterscotch Pie
Ingredients
For the All-Butter Pie Crust (you could also use 2 store-bought crusts instead):
- 2 ¼ cups pastry flour measured by fluffing the flour then spooning it in
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 9 tablespoons unsalted butter cold, cubed into ½ inch cubes
- 2 ¼ oz cold water or as much or as little as needed
For the Pie Filling:
- 14 cups apples peeled, cored and diced. [I used a mixture of Gala, Granny Smith & Braeburn]
- 2 lemons juiced
- ⅛ teaspoon cardamom
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ cup light brown sugar not packed
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 3 cups butterscotch sauce
Optional Toppings for Crust:
Instructions
Prepare Pie Crusts:
- Whisk together pastry flour, salt and sugar. Using your stand mixer, cut in the butter until you have slightly larger than pea sized pieces.
- Slowly begin to add your ice water a tablespoon at a time. At this point be very careful with the amount of water that you add because it only needs a few teaspoons more.
- When your dough is shaggy, which means it looks like shards or strands of pastry, and there is still some loose flour, turn out your dough from the mixer and work the dough together by gathering it and pressing away from you with the heal of your hand. Do this JUST until it comes together. If it is crumbling, then dip your hand in a little ice water and pat it on the pastry dough. Seriously, that’s it. Remember the gluten!
- Divide the dough in half and press each half into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours or overnight. If you chill your dough overnight, you will need to let it rest a bit before rolling or it will be too cold and it will crack.
- Roll out half the pie dough and line a 9 or 10 inch deep-dish pie dish; refrigerate. Roll out the second half of the pie dough for the top crust, place on a baking sheet and refrigerate.
Prepare Filling:
- In a large bowl mix together the apples, lemon juice, cardamom, cinnamon, salt, brown sugar and cornstarch.
Assemble and Bake:
- Pour half of the filling into the pie dish and then pour approximately 1 ½ cups butterscotch sauce on top. Mound the remaining apple filling on top, creating a mound in the center. Pour the remaining butterscotch sauce on top.
- Cover the pie with your second crust and decoratively crimp the edges. Try to get as good a seal as you can so the butterscotch sauce stays inside the pie! Refrigerate the pie on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 20 minutes.
- Remove pie from the refrigerator and cut some vent holes near the top. Lightly brush the pastry with heavy cream, making sure it doesn’t pool anywhere because this will make your crust soggy, and then sprinkle generously with sanding sugar.
- Bake 20 minutes at 425℉, then lower the oven temperature to 350℉ and continue baking for 1 hour or until the filling is soft and bubbly and the crust is brown. You can test the filling by inserting a knife into one of the vent holes. There should be no resistance from the apples! Let cool before cutting or serving. I know, the agony!
I made these into little apple hand pies, and they were a big hit! That butterscotch sauce is amazing. I would like to add that to every dessert. I swear my husband was practically drinking it! The pie filling was very easy and has a great flavor.