But they were soooo good!
Well, now you can make them at home! But maybe wait until they cool off a bit before biting into them…
Ingredients
- 4 apples (I’d recommend Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Jonagold, Fuji and/or Golden Delicious – or better yet, a mix)
- ¼ cup butter
- 2/3 cup + 3 T dark brown sugar, separated
- 2 ¾ t cinnamon, separated
- 3 T water, separated
- 1 T apple cider or lemon juice
- 1 T cornstarch
- ¼ t nutmeg
- ¼ t allspice
- 2 sheets, frozen puff pastry
- 1 egg
Directions
We’ll start with the apple pie filling. Peel and slice the apples into small chunks.Put the chopped apples in a medium saucepan along with the butter, 2/3 cup of the brown sugar, 2 t of the cinnamon, 2 T of the water and all of the cider/lemon juice, cornstarch, nutmeg and allspice.
Turn the heat to medium, stirring regularly, until the pot starts to boil. Then, lower the heat to a simmer and let it do that for about 30-35 minutes, continuing to stir regularly, until the apples are nice and tender and most of the liquid has cooked off.
Once they’re done, take the saucepan off the heat and let your mixture cool completely. I actually put mine in the fridge overnight. Refrigerating them keeps the apples from being runny and makes it easier to work with them.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and when your apples are cool, get your puff pastry sheets and open them up. Get a rolling pin and roll them out to about 12” x 12” or so each (about 1/8” thick).
Cut each of the sheets into 8 3”x6” rectangles (so you’ll have 16 rectangles in total).
Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper and transfer 4 puff pastry rectangles to each sheet.
Get your cooled apple pie filling and spoon a nice mound of filling onto the middle of each of the 8 rectangles, leaving ¼” space around all four edges.
Next, get two small bowls. In one, whisk together the egg and the remaining 1 T water. In the other, whisk together the remaining 3T brown sugar and ¾ t cinnamon.
So at this point you should have 8 rectangles with filling on them and 8 additional waiting patiently for you.
Take each one of the remaining rectangles and place them on top of the ones with filling. You’ll have to stretch the tops a little (with your hands) because they’ll need to cover the filling and also match the length of the bottom rectangle.
Get a fork and crimp the edges of the rectangles together to seal each one. Make sure you get the whole edge – you don’t want filling to leak out as it’s baking. Next, cut 3 diagonal slits across the top of each pastry.
Get your egg wash (the egg and water mixture) and brush that over each completed pastry, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over each one.
Bake at 400 for about 18-20 minutes, or until the pastries are nice and crispy golden brown.
Remove the sheets from the oven and let the pastries rest for a couple minutes, then move them individually to a wire rack to cool completely.
You can eat these hot (though I definitely do NOT recommend right from the oven!), or they are just as good cold!
Makes 8 homemade McDonald’s apple pies!
(FYI, I had some leftover apple filling, puff pastry dough and cinnamon sugar, so I went to the grocery store and bought pre-made puff pastry shells, filled them with filling, did a little lattice with the dough over the filling and sprinked with cinnamon sugar. Super simple and nothing goes to waste!)
Ugly Desserts 