Apple pie with thyme and rosemary in it? Just wild enough to work, I say! Because of the herbs, the apples in this pie truly stand out and have an excellent aroma. Years of testing have produced the flaky, buttery, and delectable crust. This pie is now the most frequently requested food that I serve at gatherings, and it is always gobbled up quickly to many “oohs,” “ahhs,” and “mms.”
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Additional Time: | 4 hrs |
| Total Time: | 5 hrs 20 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 9-inch pie |
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, frozen
- 8 Granny Smith apples – peeled, cored and sliced
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ cup white sugar
- ½ cup packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
Instructions
- Whisk flour, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- Fill a 1-cup liquid measuring cup with water. Drop in 3 ice cubes; set aside.
- Remove butter and flour mixture from freezer. Grate butter into the flour mixture quickly. Toss using a spatula or an electric mixer to incorporate the grated butter. Drizzle 1/2 cup ice water into the bowl and mix, adding a little more water at a time until dough begins to form large clumps. Gather and lightly knead clumps of dough together into a mound using your hands.
- Divide dough in 1/2 and wrap each portion separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- When ready to bake, roll dough out on a lightly floured surface and place bottom crust into a 9-inch pie pan. Roll out second crust and slice dough into long, 3/4-inch wide strips using a rotary pizza cutter.
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
- Fill bottom pie crust with apples. Cover with dough strips, weaving into a lattice crust; crimp edges to seal. Place pie in the refrigerator.
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in flour to form a paste. Add white sugar, brown sugar, water, rosemary, and thyme. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat quickly and let simmer until rosemary and thyme are very aromatic and sauce has thickened, 5 to 7 minutes.
- Take pie out of the refrigerator and gently and slowly pour caramelized liquid over the crust, distributing it as evenly as possible so that some liquid gets into all openings of the lattice.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Continue baking until apples are soft, 35 to 45 minutes. Remove pie from the oven and let cool on a wire rack before serving.
- Sprinkle some lemon juice on your apple slices so that they don’t brown before you add them. Also, make sure to use light brown sugar in the caramel drizzle, not dark brown sugar…the extra molasses in the dark brown sugar will cause the caramel to separate and become clumpy.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 637 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 79 g |
| Cholesterol | 92 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 22 g |
| Sodium | 302 mg |
| Sugars | 42 g |
| Fat | 35 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |