6 Delicious Apple Desserts You’ll Want to Make All Autumn

I noticed something rather lovely on our walks recently. My dog has started periodically coming charging back towards me triumphantly carrying an apple.

Not once, either. Apparently, finding fallen apples is now a regular part of her September entertainment.

We don’t have an apple tree at home – although I’m increasingly thinking we should, so perhaps that’s a project for another year – but seeing all those slightly battered and bruised windfalls scattered beneath trees reminded me just how much I associate apples with autumn.

Of course, you can buy apples all year round. But there’s something particularly autumnal about them at this time of year, when they’re hanging heavily from trees, piled into farm shops and quite literally falling onto the ground around you.

And naturally, my mind went immediately to pudding.

Because honestly, who doesn’t love a proper deep-filled apple pie, still warm from the oven and gloriously covered in custard or served steaming beneath a rapidly melting scoop of rich vanilla ice cream?

I certainly couldn’t resist.

I’m possibly even worse when it comes to apple crumble. Give me that combination of soft, slightly tart fruit underneath a thick, buttery, golden crumble topping and I’ll happily forget every intention I ever had of being restrained around dessert.

And don’t even get me started on my mum’s old-fashioned baked apples.

She used to core whole apples, stuff them generously with dried fruit and brown sugar and bake them until the fruit was soft and the filling had become sticky, syrupy and caramelised. Just thinking about them has made me wonder why on earth we don’t make baked apples more often anymore.

So, inevitably, one apple dessert became six.

From that nostalgic baked apple recipe to a gloriously deep-filled pie, sticky toffee apple pudding and a rather irresistible salted caramel crumble, these are six apple desserts worth embracing autumn for.

Frankly, I’m drooling already.

1. The Best Deep-Filled Apple Pie

If we’re talking apple desserts, there really is only one place to start.

I don’t want a mean apple pie. I want plenty of buttery pastry, a ridiculously generous filling and apples that have softened but haven’t completely surrendered into purée. There should be cinnamon, a little brown sugar and enough juices inside to make everything gorgeous without giving you the dreaded soggy bottom.

For the apples, Bramleys are difficult to beat. Their sharpness works beautifully against the sugar and rich pastry. I also like mixing in a couple of eating apples – something like Cox, Braeburn or Pink Lady – which retain a little more shape and give the filling a more interesting texture.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

400g plain flour
200g cold unsalted butter, cubed
50g icing sugar
Pinch of salt
2 egg yolks
3–5 tbsp ice-cold water
1 beaten egg, for glazing
Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

For the filling:

1kg apples – ideally around 700g Bramley and 300g eating apples
100g soft light brown sugar
30g caster sugar
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
2 tbsp cornflour
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
25g butter

Method

Start with the pastry. Rub the cold butter into the flour, icing sugar and salt until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg yolks followed by just enough cold water to bring everything together into a dough.

Don’t overwork it. Divide into two pieces – making one slightly larger for the base – wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Peel, core and slice the apples. Put them into a large bowl with the sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, cornflour, lemon juice and vanilla, then toss until everything is evenly coated.

Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

Roll the larger piece of pastry out and use it to line a deep 23cm pie dish. Pile in the apple mixture – and I mean pile. It should look slightly overfilled because the apples will collapse considerably during baking.

Dot the butter across the top.

Roll out the remaining pastry, lay it over the apples and seal the edges. Trim away the excess and crimp however beautifully – or enthusiastically – you fancy.

Cut a few small steam holes in the top, brush generously with beaten egg and scatter with Demerara sugar.

Bake for around 50–60 minutes, until deeply golden and bubbling at the edges. If the pastry starts browning too quickly, loosely cover it with foil.

And please, for the love of apple pie, give it at least 20 minutes before cutting into it. The filling needs time to settle.

Then bring on the custard.

2. Mum’s Old-Fashioned Baked Apples with Brown Sugar & Dried Fruit

This is the recipe that started the nostalgia.

Baked apples used to feel like such a normal pudding and somewhere along the way we seem to have forgotten about them. Which is ridiculous because they’re inexpensive, ridiculously easy and make your kitchen smell incredible.

My mum’s version was wonderfully uncomplicated: whole apples, cored through the middle and stuffed with dried fruit and brown sugar before being baked until completely tender.

This is my take on hers.

Ingredients

Serves 4

4 large Bramley apples
75g mixed dried fruit
50g soft dark brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
25g butter, softened
Finely grated zest of ½ orange
100ml apple juice or water
1 tbsp Demerara sugar

Method

Heat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan.

Core each apple, making a reasonably generous cavity through the centre but leaving the apple itself whole. Score a very shallow line around the circumference of each apple – this helps prevent the skin splitting unpredictably as it cooks.

Mix the dried fruit, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and orange zest together.

Pack the mixture firmly into the centre of each apple. Don’t be shy with it; you want the filling practically bursting out of the top.

Sit the apples snugly in a baking dish, pour the apple juice or water around them and scatter a little Demerara sugar over each one.

Bake for 35–45 minutes, depending on the size of your apples. You want them completely tender when pierced with a knife but preferably still holding their shape.

During cooking, spoon some of the syrupy juices from the dish back over the apples.

Serve them warm with custard, vanilla ice cream or cold pouring cream, making sure everyone gets some of that sticky sauce from the bottom of the dish.

Honestly, why did we ever stop making these?

3. Salted Caramel Apple Crumble

Apple crumble was already pretty close to perfection, so I’m aware that messing around with it could be considered unnecessary.

But salted caramel is involved, so I’m prepared to take the risk.

The trick here is not drowning the apples in caramel. We still want the tartness of the fruit and that buttery crumble topping. The caramel should weave through everything rather than turning it into one overwhelmingly sweet pudding.

Ingredients

For the apples:

800g Bramley apples
50g soft light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp lemon juice
100g thick salted caramel sauce

For the crumble:

200g plain flour
120g cold unsalted butter
100g Demerara sugar
50g rolled oats
Pinch of salt

Method

Heat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan.

Peel, core and roughly slice the apples and put them into a baking dish. Add the brown sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice and give everything a good toss.

Spoon the salted caramel over the apples in little pockets rather than stirring it completely through.

For the crumble, rub the butter into the flour until you have a mixture of fine crumbs and larger buttery clumps. Those clumps are important – nobody wants a crumble topping with the texture of sand.

Stir through the Demerara sugar, oats and a small pinch of salt.

Pile the topping generously over the fruit without pressing it down.

Bake for 35–40 minutes, until the crumble is crisp and golden and you can see caramelised apple juices bubbling enthusiastically around the edges.

Let it stand for ten minutes before serving.

Vanilla ice cream is particularly good here because the cold creaminess against the hot salted caramel apples is bordering on indecent.

4. Sticky Toffee Apple Pudding

Now we’re getting serious.

Think sticky toffee pudding, but with chunks of soft apple running through a dark, moist sponge and plenty of hot toffee sauce poured over the top.

This is the one I’d make when it’s properly miserable outside.

Ingredients

For the pudding:

175g pitted dates, chopped
200ml boiling water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
75g unsalted butter, softened
125g soft dark brown sugar
2 eggs
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eating apples, peeled, cored and diced

For the toffee sauce:

100g butter
150g soft dark brown sugar
200ml double cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Generous pinch of sea salt

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan and butter a roughly 20cm square baking dish.

Put the chopped dates into a bowl, pour over the boiling water and stir in the bicarbonate of soda. Leave for about ten minutes before lightly mashing with a fork.

Beat the butter and brown sugar together until creamy, then beat in the eggs one at a time.

Fold through the flour, vanilla and cinnamon, followed by the soaked dates – including their liquid – and finally the diced apple.

Spoon into the prepared dish and bake for 30–35 minutes, or until risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out without wet batter attached.

While that’s happening, make the sauce.

Put the butter, sugar and cream into a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved. Bring to a gentle simmer for 3–4 minutes, stirring regularly, then add the vanilla and sea salt.

Poke a few holes in the hot pudding and pour over about a third of the sauce, allowing it to soak into the sponge.

Serve the rest at the table.

Custard works. Cream works. Vanilla ice cream works.

All three simultaneously might be excessive, but I’m not here to judge.

5. Apple Crumble Blondies

These are what happens when an apple crumble and a blondie make some questionable decisions together.

You get a dense, buttery blondie underneath, little pieces of cinnamon apple running through it and a crisp crumble scattered over the top.

They’re also dangerously easy to eat because, unlike a bowl of crumble, apparently picking up another square while making a cup of tea doesn’t count as having a second pudding.

Ingredients

For the apples:

2 eating apples, peeled and diced quite small
15g butter
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

For the blondies:

180g unsalted butter, melted
200g soft light brown sugar
75g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
220g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

For the crumble:

75g plain flour
45g cold butter
40g Demerara sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan and line a 20cm square tin.

First, soften the apples. Melt the butter in a frying pan, add the diced apples, brown sugar and cinnamon and cook for around 4–5 minutes. You don’t want apple sauce – just slightly softened pieces. Leave to cool.

Make the crumble by rubbing the butter into the flour, then stirring in the Demerara sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.

For the blondie mixture, whisk the melted butter with both sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk again until glossy.

Fold through the flour, baking powder and salt, being careful not to overmix.

Finally, fold through the cooled apple pieces.

Spread the mixture into the tin and scatter the crumble generously over the top.

Bake for around 30–35 minutes. The edges should be set and golden while the centre remains slightly soft – they’ll continue setting as they cool.

Leave completely in the tin before slicing.

They’re gorgeous as they are, but warm one slightly and add vanilla ice cream and suddenly you’ve turned a blondie into a proper pudding.

You’re welcome.

6. French-Style Apple Tart

After pie, crumble, sticky toffee pudding and blondies, I thought we should probably behave ourselves for the final recipe.

Sort of.

A French-style apple tart is one of those desserts that looks enormously sophisticated despite requiring surprisingly little artistic talent. The secret is simply slicing the apples thinly and arranging them neatly.

We’re using puff pastry too, because there are limits to how much unnecessary work I’m prepared to introduce into pudding.

Ingredients

1 sheet ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry
4 crisp eating apples
30g unsalted butter, melted
40g caster sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp apricot jam
1 tsp lemon juice
Crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream, to serve

Method

Heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan and place a baking tray in the oven to heat.

Unroll the pastry onto its baking paper and lightly score a 2cm border around the outside, taking care not to cut completely through.

Prick the pastry inside the border with a fork.

Core the apples and slice them as thinly as you can. You can peel them if you prefer, although I actually like the colour you get from leaving the skins on.

Arrange the slices in overlapping rows across the pastry, keeping inside your scored border.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle over the caster sugar and cinnamon.

Carefully transfer the tart – still on its baking paper – onto the hot tray and bake for 25–30 minutes, until the pastry is deeply golden and crisp and the apples have started to caramelise around their edges.

Warm the apricot jam with the lemon juice and a teaspoon of water, then brush it over the hot apples.

That final glaze is what takes it from I’ve put some apples on pastry to something that looks like it belongs in the window of a French pâtisserie.

Serve warm or at room temperature with crème fraîche.

Which Apples Are Best for Baking?

Not every apple behaves the same way once it hits the oven.

For pies, crumbles and baked apples, I’m a big fan of Bramleys. They’re wonderfully sharp, soften beautifully and provide exactly the tartness you need when you’re adding sugar, pastry, crumble or caramel.

For recipes where you want the apple pieces to retain their shape – particularly the French tart and blondies – choose a firmer eating apple such as Braeburn, Cox, Jazz or Pink Lady.

For the deep-filled pie, I think a mixture of cooking and eating apples gives you the best of both worlds: some collapse into those lovely thick juices while others remain as discernible pieces of fruit.

And if you’re lucky enough to have an apple tree producing more fruit than you know what to do with, firstly, I’m jealous.

Secondly, start baking.

Making the Most of Apple Season

Perhaps that’s why I’ve suddenly become slightly obsessed with apple puddings again.

They’re not new or particularly fashionable. In fact, some of the best – like my mum’s baked apples – are decidedly old-fashioned.

But there’s something incredibly comforting about them.

Apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter, pastry and custard don’t need reinventing every autumn. They were delicious decades ago and they’re delicious now.

So the next time I see my dog proudly trotting towards me with another slightly battered windfall apple in her mouth, I’ll probably still have to confiscate it.

But I may also finally take the hint and plant that apple tree.

And if it eventually produces enough fruit for six different puddings?

Even better.

Joanne Brook-Smith is a writer and editor with two decades of publishing experience. She launched Crave Magazine during the Covid period to create a fresh, inspiring space for food, travel and lifestyle content.