This thousand layer apple pie just about lives up to its name with countless layers of thinly sliced apple dunked in a sugar-butter-cinnamon mixture, layered and topped with puff pastry, and baked until creamy and custardy.
It’s apple picking season! Every year we take an autumn trip to my dad’s house upstate and it’s always filled with fall staple activities. This year, those included homemade pizza made in the wood-fired oven inside (probably my favorite part of my dad’s house, where I’ve spent many a chilly childhood and adult morning warming myself over the oven), an ice cream/costume/pumpkin-patch party at their friends house, and of course apple picking. And if you’ve been apple picking before, you know that while there’s nothing better than fresh crisp apples right from the tree, there’s also a struggle to use all those apples before they go bad. Last year I made this Upside Down Candy Apple Pancake to put some of those apple to good use, and this year I made this thousand layer apple pie, which might just be my new favorite way to eat apple pie.
Now I’m not a person who happens to be huge on social media, but I do my fair share of Instagram-scrolling, like I’m sure many of us do. I follow a ton of cooking based accounts, always looking for inspiration for my next recipe. There’s a recipe that’s been trending for about a year now for thousand layer potatoes. I’m not gonna lie, these potatoes look absolutely amazing and I most definitely want to try making them at some point. It’s not a complicated recipe, but it does require a good but of time and I just haven’t gotten around to trying it yet. So when I saw a similar recipe for thousand-layer apple pie that used the same concept as these potatoes but seemed incredibly quick and easy to make, and I happened to have a ton of apples from apple picking, I knew I had to make it.
A GOOEY APPLE PIE
The concept behind this thousand layer apple pie is a simple one. To give these pies all those layers (not quite a thousand, but close), you’ll thinly slice the apples on a mandolin. Then you’ll dunk each of those slices into a butter-sugar-cinnamon mixture (a staple for any kind of apple pie), and layer them in little ramekins. While you could definitely make this pie on a larger scale in a cake tin, I like making them individual because they’re cute, and each pie neatly uses one apple. Top each ramekin with a circle of puff pastry crust and bake until that crust is golden brown.
This thousand layer apple pie comes out slightly unlike any apple pie you’ve had before. You know how sometimes the apples in apple pie still have a little bit of crunch? Some people may like it that way, but this pie is practically the exact opposite of that. Slicing the apples super thinly means that they bake faster and more completely, resulting in apples that become soft and gooey and almost custard-like. Dipping them in the butter-cinnamon-sugar mixture results in an almost caramel-like syrup in these pies, and ensures that each bite of this pie is absolutely bursting with sweetness and fall flavor. And best of all, they really are pretty easy to make, and will make the perfect impressive dessert for any dinner party or holiday meal.
And just for good measure, here are a few pictures from our fall adventures this weekend! You might see my niece Scarlet holding a little ghost; that’s Ghostie, a character in a stop-motion animation I’m making. You can follow him on Instagram here.
Thousand Layer Apple Pie
Equipment
- mandolin
- 4 mini ramekins
Ingredients
- 4-5 apples
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed on the counter for 1 hour
- 1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for buttering ramekins
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 and butter the ramekins.
- Peel and core all the apples. Then thinly slice them on a mandolin.
- Melt the butter. In a small bowl, combine melted butter, lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and salt.
- Dip each apple slice in the butter mixture and then layer into a ramekin. Repeat this process until the layers reach almost to the top (about 40 layers). Flip each ramekin over into the bowl to drain out the excess liquid.
- Bake the apple pies (without the crust) for 10 minutes.
- While the pies bake, roll out the puff pastry and cut out circles that are roughly the size of your ramekins.
- After their 10 minute bake, carefully top each ramekin with a circle of puff pastry. Return to the oven and bake until pastry is golden brown, 20 minutes.
- Allow the pies to cool and serve with ice cream or whipped cream. You can also flip them upside down out of the ramekin to serve if you'd like.
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