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• Precook or macerate the apples. Toss the sliced fruit with the sugar and leave it an hour; it will give up 100–200 ml of liquid. Reduce that liquid to a syrup and put it back. The apples then shrink in the bowl instead of in the pie, and the top crust sits on fruit rather than air.
• Mix your apples. A firm, tart one that holds its shape and a soft one that breaks down to sauce. Bramley or Granny Smith with Golden Delicious or Braeburn. See apple and apple recipes.
• Thicken correctly, and not much. 25–30 g of cornstarch or 20 g of tapioca starch for 1.2 kg of apple. Flour makes it cloudy and pasty.
• Bake it hot, then hotter than you think, and for longer. 220 °C for 20 minutes, then 190 °C for 45–55. The filling must actually bubble through the vents — a pie pulled before the starch boils sets runny.
• Bake on a preheated steel or heavy tray on the bottom rack. This is the single best defence against a soggy base.
• Cool it four hours. Pie sets as it cools. Cut hot, it runs, every time.

One 23 cm double-crust pie. Serves 8.

• 1 batch all-butter pie crust, both discs
• 1.2 kg apples, about 8, peeled and sliced 8 mm
• 150 g granulated sugar
• 50 g light brown sugar
• 30 g cornstarch
• 8 g ground cinnamon
• 2 g nutmeg
• 4 g fine salt
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 30 g unsalted butter, in small pieces
• 1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk, to glaze
• coarse sugar, to finish

Toss the apples with both sugars, the salt, spices and lemon juice. Leave one hour, stirring twice.

Drain the juice into a saucepan and boil it down to about 60 ml of syrup. Cool slightly, then toss it back through the apples with the cornstarch.

Line the tin with the bottom crust and chill. Heat the oven to 220 °C / 425 °F with a heavy tray on the lowest rack.

Pile the filling in — it should dome — and dot with butter. Lay the top crust over, trim, seal, crimp, and cut five vents. Chill 20 minutes.

Brush with egg wash and scatter coarse sugar.

Bake on the hot tray at 220 °C for 20 minutes, then reduce to 190 °C / 375 °F for 45–55 minutes, until the crust is deep brown and the juices bubble thickly through the vents. Tent with foil if the edge darkens early.

Cool at least four hours before cutting.

• A lattice loses more water and gives a firmer filling; a solid top traps steam and keeps the fruit softer. Both are correct.
• Cheddar with apple pie is a genuine northern English and New England tradition, not a joke. See cheese.
• Keeps three days at room temperature, loosely covered. Refrigeration makes the crust tough.
• The topping-instead-of-crust versions are dutch apple pie and apple crisp.

Method and theory: Pie and tart recipes · pies and tarts · all-butter pie crust · apple

Nearby: dutch apple pie · cherry pie · peach pie