A fulfilling apple pie features a satisfying crust that balances flaky and chewy textures with the kind of structural integrity to hold up under the weight of a luscious apple filling. Whether you prefer to make everything from scratch or take some store-bought shortcuts, getting the proper flavor and texture is paramount. If you’re already familiar with the simple ways to make canned pie filling even better, it’s time to take your pie to an all-new level by replacing your standard canned apples with something a bit more spicy. Try a can of fried apples — also known as cinnamon apples — to give your pie the ultimate lift of warming spices. You can typically find canned fried apples from brands like ALDI, Glory, and Cracker Barrel among others, meaning you can streamline your pie-making process and leave even more room to enjoy a slice.
Any of your favorite brands of canned fried apples takes the comfort of a warm spiced Southern fried apples recipe and offers all of that deliciousness in a convenient container. Using this style of canned apples is an obvious choice because of the added cinnamon flavor, to which you can add even more of your favorite warming spices for a fully enhanced filling. But there are a few tips you’ll need to ensure your pie filling achieves the ideal consistency for an indulgent and delightful pie.
Using canned cinnamon apples in your pie
When using canned fried apples in a pie, you’ll need to take consistency into consideration. Most canned pie fillings are thickened with cornstarch, tapioca starch, ClearJel, or similar agents. You can drain and use canned fried apples to enhance standard apple pie filling, but you won’t want your entire pie filling to be solely the fried apples unless you’ve taken care to adjust the overall texture first. It might take some trial and error to figure out the right consistency for your pie filling, but a good rule of thumb is to test whether it’s syrupy enough to coat the back of a spoon.
As far as crust is concerned, you’ll want to ensure that your scratch-made or store-bought dough won’t be overwhelmed. If you want to bake from scratch, try working with a Dutch apple pie with sugar cookie crust recipe for an ideal mix of flavor and texture. You can also press store-bought sugar cookie crust into a pie tin to create a similar effect. Create the filling using either a thickened batch of canned fried apples or a mix of cinnamon apples and apple pie filling and feel free to spice things up even more with a dash of clove, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger before baking everything to perfection.
