Muscovado Apple Crisp Pie Special shout out to our first dessert post! What what!
Why so long to do a dessert post, you ask? We have been boycotting sugar in our house for a little while. Maybe that is a bit extreme… but I haven’t been baking lately. My husband has a crazy sweet tooth. He received some not so great news from the Dr. and basically told him he needed to get his life together. Me being the awesome wife that I am, I decided I am going to quit baking so much (notice I said “so much”). That is why desserts have been M.I.A. from this blog.
Like everyone and their mother, we went apple picking too! When you go apple picking you end up with more apples than you know what to do. We ate some, but I had to make a pie. It’s fall and cozy, this time of year just screams apple pie! I had no choice but to relent my baking strike. Sugar once in a while is ok, right? Say yes!
I have come to realize that I am a texture person and I love foods with different textures. This pie was born to satiate my love for apple crisp and apple pie at once. I love the streusel oat topping in a crisp but I also love the flaky buttery texture of a pie crust. This is a beautiful combination of the two. I have been noticing a lot of caramel apple pie recipes going around but I always find them to be way too sweet. I love to eat vanilla ice cream with my apple pie (again texture thing), so I don’t want the pie to be sickening sweet on its own. I bought muscovado sugar and have been waiting for the right moment to do something with it. This was it! This gave me a pie that wasn’t too sweet like a caramel apple pie but had all the deep buttery rich notes of one. Muscovado is essentially unrefined cane sugar where the molasses has not been removed. It taste like molasses! It has a smokey floral flavor that I really enjoy and it pairs well with apples.
You could totally use brown sugar if you aren’t thrilled about muscovado or can’t find it. This pie would be equally delicious without it, but I really enjoyed the depth of flavor that muscovado brought to this party. I also used salt in the topping and in the apple mixture to round out the sweetness. You can hardly tell, it just rounds out the flavors. There is also a vanilla bean because I just could not help myself. I think using an actual vanilla bean instead of using extract takes fruit desserts to another level.
- Pie Crust
- 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
- 1 stick (1/4 pound) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/2 cup cold water
- 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup ice
- Muscovado Topping:
- 1 cup unbleached flour
- 1 cup muscovado sugar (packed)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 stick butter, diced
- 3/4 cup rolled oats (not instant)
- Apple Filling:
- 6 large apples (your choice of any baking variety) I used Jonagold and Rome Beauty. Peeled, cored and cut into 1/4 inch slices.
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 vanilla bean scraped
- In a food processor combine flour, salt and sugar. Pulse to combine. Add butter and pulse till butter is pea size. In a large measuring cup or small bowl combine water, vinegar and ice. Add 2 tablespoons of ice water mixture to the food processor and pulse. Add one or more tablespoon of ice water at a time till the mixture becomes a ball with some dry bits remaining.
- Shape the dough into a round disc, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or more.
- Combine flour, sugar, salt. Stir to combine. Work in butter with a fork or pastry cutter. This will take a few minutes. Once the butter is pea size, stir in oats. You can use a a food processor here. Just pulse until the butter is pea size, transfer to a bowl and then stir in oats. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- In a large bowl combine apples, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and vanilla bean seeds. Toss to combine.
- Preheat oven to 375°F
- Roll out dough and transfer to a pie plate. Crimp edges with your fingers.
- Add the apples to the pie plate. It's okay to pile high because the apples will cook down.
- Crumble the topping on top of the apples.
- Bake for one hour, it should be golden brown and bubbling.
View Comments (2)
Looks great! Thanksgiving???
Thanks Nancy! It could be for Thanksgiving.