Deep Dish Salted Caramel Apple Pie featuring Falcon Enamelware

A crowd-pleasing apple pie dessert your guests will come back for more!

Today I have a recipe for an absolutely gorgeous deep dish salted caramel apple pie. I made the pie in a 26cm Falcon Enamelware pie dish which is part of a set that includes 5 pie dishes of differing sizes:

1 x 20cm Oblong Pie Dish
1 x 24cm Oblong Pie Dish
1 x 26cm Oblong Pie Dish
1 x 28cm Oblong Pie Dish
1 x 30cm Oblong Pie Dish

Falcon’s enamelware combines porcelain with heavy gauge steel making it durable, lightweight, long-lasting and chemical resistant. The enamel steel means that it's dishwasher safe making it easy to clean but remember it’s not suitable for use in the microwave.

As its oven safe up to 270°C, Falcon enamelware is perfect for baking pies and making meatloaves and puddings. It can also be used as serving ware and for food prep. I have a number of the smaller oblong dishes in my kitchen which I use to make individual serves of macaroni cheese or small batches of roast vegetables.

Here’s the recipe for you which makes a 26cm deep dish pie but you could also make this using a 9-inch pie dish. The recipe looks a bit complicated but just take it to step by step and you’ll be fine. The recipe will make more salted caramel sauce and pastry than you need but both store well. To speed up the process, you could always use ready-made salted caramel sauce and buy some all-butter shortcrust pastry.

For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Deep Dish Salted Caramel Apple Pie Recipe

Ingredients

Salted caramel sauce

1 cup cream
1 cup brown sugar
⅓ cup caster sugar
½ cup golden syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
A pinch of sea salt flakes

Pastry

2 ½ cups plain flour
1 pinch sea salt flakes
1 tablespoon caster sugar
250g cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces
150 mls cold water
1 tbs lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

Filling

3 large Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced
2 large Pink Lady apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced
2 tbs lemon juice
2 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
A pinch allspice
A pinch ground nutmeg

Topping

75g unsalted butter
75g plain flour
90g raw sugar
3 heaped tbs rolled oats
Pinch each salt and cinnamon

To serve

Cream Caramel sauce

Method

Sauce

1. Put the cream, sugars, syrups and vanilla in a small heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to the boil stirring until the sugar has dissolved. 2. Continue to boil until a sugar thermometer registers 108°C. 3. Remove from the heat then set aside for 20 minutes before whisking the mixture smooth. 4. Add a pinch of sea salt flakes to taste. 5. The sauce will still be runny at this stage but the caramel will continue to thicken as it cools. This makes more caramel sauce than you need for this recipe but the sauce keeps for many months in an airtight container in the fridge. Just re-warm when needed.

Pastry

1. Stir flour, salt, and sugar together in a large bowl.

2. Add butter and cut it into the flour with a pastry blender or on your hands. Work quickly, cutting it in until mostly pea-size pieces of butter remain.

3. You can also do this stage in a food processor.

4. Combine the water, lemon juice or vinegar in a measuring cup.

5. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the water mixture over the flour mixture, and cut it in with a bench scraper, a spatula, or your hands until it’s fully incorporated.

6. Add more of the water mixture, 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time, mixing each time until it just holds together (sprinkle dry bits with more small drops of water to combine if necessary). It should have streaks of butter.

7. Cut the dough into two, and shape each half into a flat disc.

8. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour. You’ll only need to use one disc of pastry for this recipe but the dough can be refrigerated for three days or frozen for one month.

9. Take the dough out of the fridge 5 to 10 minutes before you roll it, so it won’t crack. Lightly flour your work surface and rolling pin.

10. Begin rolling, starting from slightly below the centre and rotating the dough as you go.

11. Lightly sprinkle more flour on everything as you go.

12. Be careful not to let the centre get too thin—it shouldn’t be less than ⅛ inch in thickness. You want the dough to be 2 or 3 inches larger than the pan you are using—lay the pie tin face-down on the rolled dough to see if it’s rolled out enough.

13. Butter the pie dish. Fold the dough disc in half, lay it across one side of your pan, and unfold. Make sure there are no gaps between the dough and the pan.

14. Trim the dough along the edges to allow 1-2 cm of excess.

15. Fold the excess dough under and crimp decoratively.

16. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes while you prepare the filling and the topping.

Filling

1. Combine apples and lemon juice in a bowl. 2. Add brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. 3. Let rest for 30 minutes.

Topping

1. Place all the ingredients into a small bowl. 2. Rub the butter into the sugar and dry ingredients until it forms a soft dough then place in the fridge until needed.

Assembly

1. Take the pie dish out of the fridge. 2. Arrange one-third of the apple mixture over the pastry case. 3. Drizzle with 1 and ½ tablespoons of caramel sauce.

4. Continue layering with half the remaining apple and drizzle with another 1 and ½ tablespoons caramel sauce. Top with the remaining apple. Place in the fridge for 15 minutes to chill.

5. Preheat the oven to 200°C, conventional.

6. Place pie on a baking tray on the lower third shelf of the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the pastry edges are just coloured.

7. Remove the pie from the oven and lower the oven to 190ºC, conventional.

8. Sprinkle clumps of the crumble topping over the top of the pie to cover the apple.

9. Return the pie to the oven this time placing it on the middle shelf.

10. Bake for a further 30 minutes or until the apple is cooked when tested with a knife and the crumble is golden brown and you can see the juices bubbling. If the top of the pie is browning too quickly, cover it with a piece of baking paper. I left the pie in the turned-off oven for a further 30 minutes to ensure the apple slices were fully cooked.

11. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack.