Apple pie is a classic fall staple — but not all recipes for the dessert are created equally.
To find one worth following all autumn long, I turned to the pros and tried making apple pies using recipes from celebrity chefs Gordon Ramsay, Ree Drummond, and Alton Brown.
Here’s how it went — and which dessert came out on top.
Ramsay’s recipe uses caramelized apples
For this pie, I used a recipe from Ramsay’s cookbook “Cooking for Friends,” which was published over a decade ago, though I’ve seen the recipe online, too.
In many pie recipes, you just throw raw apple pieces — often tossed with spices, lemon juice, some flour, and sugar — into the crust, and they’ll soften as they bake.
However, Ramsay’s caramelized apple pie adds depth to the filling by caramelizing the apples first.
The recipe calls for sugar, sweet-tart pastry, tart apples, butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and egg wash.
This was the easiest pie to make, but the crust gave me some trouble
The entire pie is made with fairly simple ingredients, and it came together in no time.
I started by creaming butter and sugar together in a food processor. I added an egg and all-purpose flour to form the crust.
Once the dough started to stick together, I placed it onto a floured cutting board to knead it. I rolled it out slightly and wrapped it with plastic to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
While the pie crust chilled, I got to work chopping and caramelizing the apples — I went with Granny Smith, which are famously tart — for the filling.
To do so, I coated my quartered apple pieces with cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar, then heated some butter in a pan.
I cooked the cinnamon-sugar apples in two batches to avoid overcrowding, and each took about 10 minutes. They smelled amazing and made my entire apartment smell good, too.
After 30 minutes in the fridge, I transferred the dough to a floured work surface, cut it in half, and rolled one part out.
When it was time to lift the crust into a tin, though, it fell apart.
Luckily, I was able to patch it up, and the top crust didn’t seem too patchy or torn.
Finally, I brushed the top crust with egg wash, cut into it slightly so steam could escape, and sprinkled it with sugar, as instructed.
I baked the pie for about 40 minutes, until the crust looked golden brown.
Despite the crust issues, the pie turned out great and looked better than I expected
The crust was crispy and flaky, though the caramelized juices leaked a bit along the edges, making some parts extra-crispy and a bit difficult to cut.
The apple filling was flavorful, thick, and gooey, with a nice, warm caramel flavor.
My only complaint is that I wanted more apples in the middle. Ramsay’s recipe called for about four apples, but the others I tested ended up requiring me to use six or seven. Next time, I’d definitely use more.
Drummond’s apple pie called for a long list of ingredients
I followed Drummond’s recipe for caramel-apple pie from the Food Network site. It has a long list of ingredients — over a dozen — for the crust, filling, and topping.
I needed ingredients like nutmeg, cinnamon, distilled white vinegar, quick oats, pecans, brown sugar, and premade caramel topping.
This recipe uses Granny Smith apples for the filling and butter and shortening for the crust, which is quite standard.
However, the sheer amount of butter and shortening needed surprised me.
The dough for the crust includes 12 tablespoons of butter and nearly a cup of vegetable shortening, or lard. The topping includes another stick and a half of butter.
This pie took me a couple of hours to make
Despite the intimidating list of ingredients, this pie was pretty easy and quick to make.
I made the spiced crust first, and because I didn’t have a pastry cutter, I had to work the butter and shortening into the flour, vinegar, egg, and spice mix with my fingers.
I cut it into two pieces, formed two dough balls, and stored each in a plastic bag, rolling them out slightly so they’d be easier to work with later.
I let them chill in the freezer for 20 minutes while I prepared the filling. Luckily, the filling was easy to make. All I had to do was combine my peeled, diced apples with sugar, flour, salt, and lemon juice.
Next, I removed one dough ball from the freezer, which was a breeze to roll out. It didn’t stick to the cutting board or rolling pin and transferred easily to the pie tin.
Then I added the filling to the pie crust and began working on the crumble topping.
Again, I had to work the butter into the flour for the topping by hand before adding brown sugar, a little salt, and oats.
I added the topping to the pie and put it in the oven for an hour.
I’m glad I put a baking sheet on the bottom rack of my oven to catch any drips because the pie leaked a lot while it baked.
After an hour, I poured pecans on the top of the pie and baked it for another five minutes. When it came out of the oven, I topped it with half of a jar of premade caramel sauce, per Drummond’s instructions.
This buttery, sugar-loaded pie was so delicious that I made a second one
Unfortunately, when I cut into the warm pie, it completely fell apart and looked more like an apple crumble. Perhaps I should’ve waited for it to cool a bit longer.
Still, it tasted amazing. The crust was incredibly buttery and flaky, and the added nutmeg and cinnamon kept it flavorful and autumnal.
The bottom crust wasn’t soggy at all, but it was so flaky it couldn’t hold the weight of the apples.
The added caramel on top might make this pie a bit too rich for some, but it’s still really, really good. I enjoyed it both plain and à la mode.
Later, after I stored the pie in the fridge for a few hours, it was much easier to cut. The cold pieces held together nicely, too.
Brown’s pie called for a spice that was hard for me to find
I followed Brown’s recipe for “super” apple pie from the Food Network. Many of the ingredients for Brown’s apple pie are pretty standard, but a few are definitely not common among basic home cooks.
I was intrigued that the filling included lime juice, several types of apples (suggestions include varieties like Honeycrisp and Granny Smith), apple cider, and apple jelly.
It also called for tapioca flour, which I had on hand, and grains of paradise (seeds with a peppery, gingery flavor), which I had to order online because no grocery stores near me carried them.
His crust called for butter, shortening, flour, sugar, salt, and one surprising ingredient: chilled apple brandy.
Making this pie was an all-day affair
I started by chilling the brandy, butter, and shortening for the pie crust in the fridge for an hour.
Once it was cold, I started making the crust in the food processor per the recipe’s instructions.
After the dough was ready, I divided it into two pieces, wrapped them, and chilled them in the fridge for a few hours.
Then, I sliced my apples into wedges and combined them with sugar.
I had to let them drain in a colander over a bowl for an hour and a half. I cooked the juice on the stove until it was reduced to about 2 tablespoons.
I set aside the reduced mixture for later, as it was meant to replace an egg wash.
After they drained, I tossed the apple pieces with the tapioca flour, sugar, apple jelly, apple cider, lime juice, and the freshly-ground grains of paradise (which I found difficult to grind).
The dough was pretty manageable to roll out and held together as I transferred it into the pie tin. Then, I tried to place the apple pieces inside it in concentric circles, as instructed.
To help my apples lie nicely, I used a ceramic pie bird. These are usually used to help steam escape from a pie, preventing a soggy crust and stopping juices from boiling over.
Then I topped the pie with the second piece of dough (making sure to keep my bird’s beak sticking out) and crimped the edges.
I tried brushing the reduced apple juice on top, but it was sticky and kept tearing the crust, so I gave up after using a small amount.
The recipe said to first bake the pie on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper on the “floor of my oven,” so that’s what I did, for about 30 minutes.
Then, as instructed, I baked it for 20 minutes on the lower rack.
I had to cover the edges with foil halfway through baking because they were browning too much.
After that, the toughest part was letting the pie rest for at least four hours, per Brown’s suggestion, before enjoying a slice.
Unfortunately, I thought both the crust and the filling were a little bland
After hours of chilling the dough, draining the apples, and cooling the pie, I was ready to eat it.
However, it wasn’t as good as I had hoped. The crust was a little dry and seemed slightly overdone.
I thought the center tasted strongly of apple, which wasn’t very surprising, but it didn’t taste like much else. There wasn’t much warmth in terms of flavor, and I didn’t get any hints of spiciness or pepper from the grains of paradise.
I was surprised the recipe didn’t feature typical apple-pie ingredients like cinnamon or nutmeg, and I think those spices would’ve added nice flavor.
Overall, this pie took the longest to make, and all the work didn’t seem to pay off.
Drummond’s apple pie is my new go-to, but I’d also absolutely make Ramsay’s recipe again
Anything loaded with butter and sugar is bound to be delicious, and that’s definitely the case with Drummond’s caramel-apple pie. It’s rich and indulgent, and I hope to make it for many autumnal gatherings and Thanksgiving dinners to come.
For a classic pie with crust instead of a crumble topping, I would make Ramsay’s recipe again, but with double the number of apples for the filling.
Both of these pies were pretty easy to make and turned out to be very impressive for homemade creations.
Click to check out the other celebrity-chef recipes we’ve put head-to-head so far.
This story was originally published on September 25, 2021, and most recently updated on October 2, 2026.
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