Caramel Apple Streusel Pie
Caramel apple streusel pie = everyone’s FAVORITE pie out of the millions that they’ll have the option to eat this season during Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings! I’ve been making this pie over the last couple of years, tweaking the recipe as I go, and every single time I serve it, I think we come away from the evening with more friends.
It’s irresistible, I tell you!
This pie is pretty similar to my apple crisp pie, but the addition of homemade caramel sauce to this one makes it seem perfect for cooler weather. I know, you can eat caramel in every season, but there’s just something about caramel between September and December that seems…extra special?
The full recipe is below, but I’ll walk through the main steps with you:
Before you even start assembling the pie, you’ll prepare the graham cracker crust and the streusel topping (both recipes are below). Then after you’ve prepped those, you’ll toss the apples and then pour them into the graham cracker crust. Tent the apples with foil, place in oven, and bake for 30 minutes at 350. Your oven should already be preheated – you’ll have used the oven when you baked the graham cracker crust & streusel topping beforehand.
After you’ve baked the apples, you’ll take the pie out of the oven and get out the caramel sauce and streusel topping.
Remove the foil from the pie and drizzle the caramel sauce all over the apples (recipe below, and it’s also here if you’re wanting to have a copy of just the caramel sauce – such a versatile ingredient for lots of desserts!).
Then you’ll break apart the streusel topping and sprinkle it on the top of the apples.
Place the pie back in the oven (uncovered) for 8 minutes. Take it out, allow it to cool for a few minutes, and then enjoy with vanilla ice cream!
It is a messy-to-serve pie, but it is SO GOOD.
You can also make this pie with regular pie crust. I did that for a couple of years, but I am such a sucker for graham cracker crust, so I switch between the two. If you make it with regular pie crust, just follow the instructions on the package for baking the pie crust (you’ll probably need to bake it for a little while before you add the apples), and then you can follow the rest of my recipe beyond that!
Want to remember this delicious recipe for later?! Be sure to save it to your favorite Pinterest board!
Ingredients
- FOR CRUST:
- 1.5 sleeves of graham crackers crushed
- 1 stick unsalted butter softened
- -----------------------------------------
- FOR STREUSEL TOPPING:
- 1/2 c flour
- 1/2 c brown sugar
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter softened
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch of salt
- -----------------------------
- FOR APPLE FILLING:
- 4-5 c diced green apples 3 regular-sized Granny Smith apples*
- Juice from 1/2 lemon
- 1/4 c white sugar
- 1/4 c flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ---------------------------------------------------
- FOR HOMEMADE CARAMEL SAUCE:
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 ½ c packed brown sugar
- ½ c heavy whipping cream
- 1 tsp Mexican vanilla plain vanilla is fine, but Mexican vanilla is the best!
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Mix together crushed graham crackers (you can use a food processor or good blender to crush them) and 1 stick of softened butter until you make somewhat of a dough.
- Pour graham cracker mixture into lightly-greased pie dish. Press dough evenly on bottom and up the sides of the pan. Set aside.
- To make the streusel topping, mix together - either by hand or with a food processor - all of the ingredients listed for the streusel topping. Pour into a small, lightly-greased, oven-safe dish.
- Place both the pie crust and the streusel topping in the oven and bake for 8 minutes.
- In the meantime, toss the apples with the ingredients listed for the apple filling.
- Remove the pie crust and topping from the oven. Allow the crust to cool for a few minutes before pouring in the apple filling.
- Pour in the apple filling to the pie crust, tent the pie with foil, and place in oven for 30 minutes.
- While the pie is baking, make the homemade caramel sauce (refer to the ingredients above for the caramel sauce) by first melting butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add whipping cream and vanilla. Stir.
- Add brown sugar and salt to the butter and cream and stir until they begin to dissolve. Turn heat down to low and allow sauce to simmer and thicken for about 5 minutes - stir intermittently. Remove from heat.
- After the pie has baked for 30 minutes, pull the pie out of the oven and remove the foil. Pour 1.5 c of the caramel sauce over all of the apples (about 3/4 of the sauce in the pan). Break apart the streusel topping and sprinkle evenly over the top of the pie.
- Place pie back in oven, uncovered, for 8 minutes.
- Remove from oven, allow to cool for a few minutes, and serve with vanilla ice cream.
I made this pie for our small group tonight, and it was AMAZING! It will definitely be my go-to apple pie from now on!
Oh my goodness! You have no idea how happy this makes me! I’m so thrilled y’all loved it!!!
I can attest to the deliciousness of this pie!
Thank you! Now I need to start working on the proper way to scoop out ice cream from the carton! 🙂