When it comes to baking, there are few celebrity cooks you can trust more than Ina “The Barefoot Contessa” Garten.
A renowned cook and personality for decades, Ina Garten has made a name for herself with her fantastic recipes, whether they’re delicious savory dishes or mouth watering desserts.
And when it comes to those desserts? Her apple pie recipes are some of the best!
An apple pie is a dessert that suits any occasion, whether you’re enjoying a slice in the sun or you’re having some on a winter evening.
It’s a perfect pie for the whole family, with its fruity filling, sharp flavors, and supreme sweetness. Even better, it’s got plenty of crisp, tender crust!
In our delicious guide below, we’ve got the 7 best Ina Garten apple pie recipes for you to try today (see also “Best Ina Garten Vinaigrette Recipes To Try Today“). If you’re ever in need of a fruity, flavorful dessert, then look no further!
We’re starting our list off with the recipe for Ina Garten’s must-try deep dish apple pie, a dessert that will have your mouth watering.
This is a traditional and old-fashioned take on the pie, rather than one of your average apple pies that you can pick up at the grocery stores.
It’s got its own unique blend of flavors, and it’s a dessert that’s sure to have you coming back for another slice.
Even better, it’s easy to make!
You’ll need a wide variety of ingredients for this recipe, but many of them are baking staples that you’ll likely have already in the kitchen, such as all-purpose flour and granulated sugar.
Meanwhile, the recipe instructs you on how to make your own pie crust, but if you want to save some time then you can always get a crisp store-bought one!
What really sets this apple pie apart from the competition is some of its specific ingredients.
Such as? Well, there’s quite a hint of spiciness to the pie, with the inclusion of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. These help to give the dessert an edge of spicy warmth, but they don’t overwhelm the flavor at all.
In addition to its spicy edge, you’ll also be using some freshly squeezed orange juice and lemon juice.
These give the pie a refreshing kick of citrus tanginess, making it a little sharp, but again not overwhelming the flavor. Delicious!
Our next recipe takes another look at Ina Garten’s classic apple pie, which is made in a deep dish so that you’re getting as much of the fruity dessert as possible!
While it’s not a difficult pie to make, it’s not the easiest of recipes, and so this dessert treat is best made by bakers with an intermediate skill level or higher.
With that being said, it’s totally worth the effort! For one thing, this is a supremely fruity pie, and you need to use Granny Smith apples for the apple filling.
Each of these are peeled, quartered, and cored before using them. Granny Smith apples are notably tart and tangy, and they’re the most popular apple variety for use in baking.
Meanwhile, it isn’t the only fruitiness that’s present in the apple pie, because you’ll also be using hints of orange and lemon.
This includes both orange zest and lemon zest, as well as some freshly squeezed lemon juice and orange juice.
These ingredients are rarely used in other apple pies, giving Ina Garten’s dessert the edge over the competition, because the tiny amounts of orange and lemon give the pie a hint of citrus tanginess that really works.
This next recipe guides you on how to make a wonderful apple pie from Ina Garten, with a fabulous fruit filling and a pie crust that’s unlike any other you’ll have had.
It’s a recipe that takes about 35 minutes to prepare and a further 75 minutes to cook, making it a pretty quick dessert to throw together after dinner one evening. The whole family is sure to enjoy it!
What really sets this apple pie apart from others is its crust, which is perhaps the most perfect pie crust you’ll have. How is it so good?
Well, Ina Garten has three secret tips. For one thing, you should leave the dough in the refrigerator for half an hour before you roll it.
Secondly, you shouldn’t stretch out the dough when you’re putting it into the pan. Thirdly, you need to keep the water, butter, and shortening very cold for them to work at their best.
If you keep all these tips in mind, you’re guaranteed to get an apple pie with a crust that’s perfectly crisp and buttery, which is the perfect counterpoint to the fruity filling.
Up next is this easy to follow recipe from Ina Garten, where you can very simply make her delicious take on an apple pie in just 90 minutes!
While the preparation time is about 1 hour, a lot of this is spent just leaving your disk of dough in the refrigerator beforehand!
You’ll need 4 or 5 large apples for this recipe, giving the pie its brilliant fruit filling.
The recipe doesn’t specify a type, but we would recommend using Granny Smith apples again, because they’re the best for baking.
Meanwhile, a combination of cinnamon, allspice, and ginger helps to give the apple a subtle hint of spiciness.
You can make this in the form of a regular apple pie, but the recipe also covers making it into a crostata pie if you want to try something a bit different!
It’s a must-try recipe and one you’re sure to be returning to in the future!
As you’ll know by now, a big part of Ina Garten’s secret to apple pie spice is in the use of citrus.
Very few other apple pies use this, but it’s a perfect pairing with the tart apple taste, giving it a subtly sharp citrus edge. It doesn’t overwhelm the other flavors of the pie at all, rather bringing them out more instead!
Meanwhile, a trilogy of spices (nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon) also give the dessert extra flavor, giving it an edge of warmth – which makes it an especially good pie to try during the colder months!
Once again, though, the spices don’t drown out the other flavors, which is a key to a good apple pie.
Our penultimate recipe is straight from Ina Garten herself, taken directly from her popular website!
Of course, the recipe is really from one of her best-selling cookbooks, “Family Style”, where you’ll find the recipes for dozens of other delicious dishes.
For the fruit filling, you need 4 pounds of Granny Smith apples.
These are by far the best apples for baking with, and they need to be prepared specifically before you use them. Meanwhile, the fruitiness benefits from some citrus flavoring, thanks to the use of lemon and orange.
The recipe uses the zest of each of these citrus fruits, as well as some of their juices.
Meanwhile, the recipe instructs you how to make Gartner’s “Perfect Pie Crust”, which is a winning formula that you can then use with all kinds of other meals.
An egg wash is used to adhere the top crust to the bottom crust.
Our final recipe takes another look at Ina Garten’s supremely scrumptious (and very fruity) apple pie, with its hints of citrus and spice – and all things nice!
Better still, it has a brilliant pie crust to it, topping things off (literally in the case of the top crust!). You’ll find the crust to be crisp and tender, and the filling to be flavorful and moist, making this the ideal dessert.
While some people might try to skip putting salt in their apple pie filling, you mustn’t skip it here!
Ina Garten swears by salt in a pie, because it really helps to bring out all the flavors of the apple, spices, and more. And you want all the flavor you can get!
Final Thoughts
There are few bakers more trustworthy than Ina Garten, and this is no different when it comes to her astonishing apple pies. Find the very best of her apple pie recipes with our guide!
Frequently Asked Questions
What Other Apple Desserts Does Ina Garten Make?
If you loved her apple pie recipe, Ina Garten also has recipes for delicious apple tarts and apple crisps. She even has a recipe for apple pie bars, if you want the deliciousness of an apple pie in a bite-sized snack!
I'm Barbara Hunt, the founder of WomenChefs.org. Being a mom of two, I understand the challenges of meal planning and the monotony it can bring.
That's why I created WomenChefs.org, a platform dedicated to showcasing the skills and delicious dishes crafted by amazing women. My goal is to provide a space where women can find delectable recipes that tantalize their taste buds and ignite their senses.
I hope you'll join me in exploring WomenChefs.org and discovering your next favorite recipe. Let's embrace culinary diversity and try something new together!
