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This recipe for apple crumb pie comes from my brother. I am not sure where he got it from, but he sent it to me one Thanksgiving and I’ve been making it nearly every Thanksgiving after that ever since.
Apple crumb pie is basically a combination of the traditional apple pie and apple crumble. The topping is a delicious streusel-like crumb topping.
I have made this recipe both with homemade pie crust and pre-made refrigerated pie crusts. I haven’t noticed any remarkable difference between the two, except of course the pre-made pie crusts you buy at the store certainly saves a lot of time, although they can be prone to splitting if you are impatient and try to roll them out straight out of the fridge.
My mom is an avid baker who makes a pretty mean traditional apple pie, but if I’m being honest, I really like this apple crumb pie recipe better. What can I say? Streusel pie topping is hard to beat!
My brother originally sent me this recipe in a Word document through email over a decade ago. I printed it out, folded it up and stuck in another recipe book. I wasn’t very organized with my recipes back then!
You can see I added some notes, and I’m sure these notes wouldn’t make much sense to anybody else but me. Again, the perfect example of why this blog needs to exist!
I have since made a couple of changes to his original recipe, mainly because I don’t like to cook with aluminum foil. Aluminum foil has its place for certain things, but generally all it does is make things take longer to cook, since it acts like an insulator.
The first time I made this pie at the recommend 400 degrees, I noticed it was done in about 20 minutes and the top was starting to get a little too crispy and the middle was slightly underdone.
For this reason, I’ve changed the recipe to 350 degrees, no foil, and bake for about 35 minutes. Oven temperatures and times can vary, so as I learned in my home economics cooking class in 8th grade, always set your kitchen timer for the lowest time setting so you don’t risk it burning!
{Now is also a good time to suggest if you have an older oven to invest in a good oven thermometer – you might be surprised that your oven is a lot hotter or a lot cooler than you think it is!}
The original recipe called for regular granulated sugar, and while that certainly works, I changed it to brown sugar, because I like brown sugar more. If you don’t have brown sugar on hand though, feel free to substitute with regular sugar for the crumb topping.
At any rate, this is a delicious pie, fairly easy to make, and comes out perfect even if you’re not a perfect cook. {Trust me, I am NOT a perfect cook by any means! Ask me about that time I broke the blender making mashed potatoes…}
Another interesting thing about this recipe is it really doesn’t have a lot of ingredients. It’s really just cinnamon and sugar to flavor the pie. Some apple crumb recipes I’ve seen have a whole spice rack of spices, like nutmeg, ginger, etc. – while those recipes certainly have some merit, I still think simpler is better!
The most tedious part of this pie of course is peeling and cutting up the apples, but thankfully it doesn’t even require a whole lot of apples.
I usually peel and cut the apples by hand with my ever so trusty and versatile steak knife, but a vintage apple peeler corer can make the job faster. The only problem with those vintage apple peeler corers is they slice the apples almost too thin.
For best results, it’s a good idea to use a mixture of different apples. I like to use Honey Crisp apples and Jonathan apples.
Some people like to use Granny Smith apples too. I have used different apples over the years based on what was available. If you only have one kind of apple, don’t worry – your pie will still turn out great, I promise!
Apple Crumb Pie
Ingredients
- Pie Crust Recipe {See Notes Below – can also use refrigerated}
- 6 Tart Apples {Granny Smith Jonathan, Honey Crisp, etc.}
- ½ cup Sugar
- ½ cup Cinnamon
- ½ cup Brown Sugar
- ¾ cup Flour
- ⅓ cup Butter or Margarine
Instructions
- Slice apples. Mix the cinnamon and sugar together.
- Toss sliced apples in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and place in pie shell.
- To make the crumb topping, combine the flour and brown sugar and then cut in the butter or margarine with fork or pastry blender until crumbly.
- Sprinkle crumb topping over the apples.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.
Notes
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup shortening {Butter flavored Crisco}
- Ice Water
- Mix the flour and salt together.
- Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender until shortening is the size of large peas.
- With a fork, add ice water a few tablespoons at a time until dough forms a ball – try not to over mix.
- Chill the dough {wrapped in wax paper} for 15 minutes.
- Roll out on a floured surface until about 14-16 inches in diameter and transfer to pie pan.
- Crimp edges and trim off excess dough.
Nutrition
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I have over the years, and of course if you have any questions or comments to share, please do tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!