There’s nothing quite as good as an old-fashioned deep-dish cast-iron apple pie! Made with sourdough pie crust, apples from our orchard and served with homemade vanilla ice cream, this is our favorite apple pie recipe. It’s the perfect blend of tart and sweet, and made with just a few simple ingredients, including the homemade ice cream! I stopped making pie in regular-sized pie dishes a long time ago because it took more than one pie just to feed our family for one meal. That’s when I started making deep-dish pies, most often in a cast-iron skillet or a 9″ x 13″ baking pan. This way, it was less work to make and we enjoyed the pie for more than one meal.

Our Orchard Story

When my family started the journey towards having our very own homestead, the very first thing we did was drill a well and plant fruit trees. Where we live in zone 4b, trees take a long time to grow, and you have to be sure to plant cold-hardy varieties. Our orchard consists of 24 fruit trees, along with some elderberries, blackberries and grapes. It provides us with most of the fruit we need for our family. We like to make applesauce, fruit leather, cherry pie filling, canned apple slices, pears, peaches, and grape juice and jelly!

With the canned apples I can easily make apple pie filling for deep dish apple pie and also use the apples in things like muffins and cakes. In fact, having lots of canned apples in our homestead pantry makes this and apple crisp one of my go-to last-minute desserts if I ever have to take sometime to a church potluck or family gathering.

Apples We Grow

We grow several kinds of apples in our orchard. Honey crisp, honeygold, haralred and freedom. During the fall season it’s really fun to have so many crisp apples for making apple sauce, apple juice, apple butter, apple pie and the list goes on. Apples are such a versatile fruit, and relatively easy to grow. We also keep some fresh apples in our refrigerator to eat fresh during the long winter months. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, and if the apples are organically grown like these, even better.

Sourdough Pie Crust

My favorite homemade pie dough for any pie is my sourdough pie crust. It has an incredible buttery flavor and is a flaky, tender crust. The best part about sourdough pie crust is that it is much healthier for you and easier to digest because most of the gluten has been broken down by the sourdough starter. If you’ve never tried a sourdough pie crust, I would encourage you to do so. It is one of our family’s favorites. We use it for everything from fruit pies, to sourdough pop tarts, to savory pies.

Ingredients

Apples
The best apples for pie are tart apples like granny smith apples, but any kind of apples will work fine. You can cut up fresh apples, or use canned apples. Using canned apples is my preference because it’s so fast and easy. To learn how to can apples, click here.
Flour
Regular all-purpose flour works fine for this recipe, but you can use fresh milled flour as well. I like to purchase my flour in bulk from Azure Standard. It is used in the sourdough starter, the flaky pie crust, and to thicken the apple pie filling.
Sugar
You can use regular white sugar, or purchase granulated cane sugar, which is less processed, from Azure Standard. I like to put a little bit of sugar in my pie crust, and of course in the apple pie filling.
Salt
I like to use Redmond real salt.
Butter
My favorite butter is my own homemade butter from our Jersey milk cows, but use whatever butter you like. Butter is what makes the flaky crust and is also used for brushing on top of your pie.
Cinnamon
Apple pie just wouldn’t be apple pie without cinnamon. In my opinion, cinnamon and apples were meant to go together.

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Tools

Apple peeler/corer/slicer, optional – this makes peeling and coring the apples easier, but a pairing knife works fine too.
Mixing bowl
Measuring cups and spoons
Pastry brush for adding butter to top of pie
Cast iron skillet or 9″ x 13″ pan – my favorite deep dish pie pan is my cast iron skillet, but a 9″ x 13″ pie pan will work fine too.
Rolling pin for sourdough pie crust

Favorite Sourdough Recipes:

How to Make A Deep-Dish Apple Pie

Make 4 batches of sourdough pie crust (or you can use your favorite pie crust recipe) – can be made several days ahead of time and just wrapped in plastic wrap in the refrigerator.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out half of your homemade pie crust on a lightly floured surface and place it in the bottom of your cast iron skillet or baking pan.

rolling out sourdough pie crust for apple pie-

Using a sharp knife, cut away excess dough from the edge of the pie pan.

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In a large bowl, combine apples, cinnamon, flour and sugar (if using fresh apples).

Pour apple mixture into the bottom crust.

Roll out the top crust on your floured work surface and place on top of the fruit filling.

putting pie crust on deep dish apple pie

Crimp the edges of the crust to seal them together.

Be sure to make some slits in the top of the pie dough to allow the steam to escape while the pie is baking.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.

Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet in case the pie bubbles over, optional.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour or until the crust is golden brown and the apples are tender (if you started with fresh apples, canned apples will already be soft so you can just bake it until it’s golden brown).

Remove the hot pie from the oven and serve it with homemade ice cream.

deep dish apple pie fresh out of the oven

Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week in the refrigerator, although I highly doubt it will last that long.

If you try this recipe and love it, please come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @wagonwheelhomestead21

plate of deep dish apple pie and ice cream

Tips

You can make the sourdough pie crust up to several days ahead of time, and then this pie comes together quickly.
Fresh, frozen or canned apples work great in this recipe.
I like to put a regular crust topping on my apple pie, but you can also make a crumb topping with some flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. Just mix it together until it resembles coarse crumbs and put it on top of the unbaked pie.
I make 4 batches of my sourdough pie crust for a deep dish pie of this size. If you make a smaller pie, you could mix up less pie crust. You can always use extra pie crust to make sourdough pop tarts, or even savory items like chicken or beef pot pie
There is no need to add any extra sugar to the canned apples. You’ll only need to add sugar to the apples if they are fresh.

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