How One Simple Ice Cream Twist Takes Your Apple Pie From Good To Great (Not A Topping)

Olena Rudo/Shutterstock

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Apple pie is a delicious dessert that adds a sweet, spicy warmth to chilly evenings and is a quintessential part of Thanksgiving and Christmas tables. Whether you're making the flaky, fruit-filled dessert to feed a crowd or enjoy on a quiet night in, there's just something about making an apple pie from scratch at home. It's fresh, buttery, and brings enticing aromas to your kitchen, while being straightforward to make. There's even a clever hack you can use to take a good apple pie and make it great: marinate the apple filling in melted ice cream.

A slice of apple pie is usually topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to add flavor and contrast in both temperature and texture. The icy richness of the ice cream rounds out the warm flakiness of the pie, resulting in a deliciously balanced dessert. Why not incorporate the decadent creaminess inside the pie itself? Next time you bake an apple pie, allow the fruit to marinate in thick, melted vanilla ice cream with the rest of the filling ingredients. This will give the filling a smoother and richer consistency while boosting its flavor with the floral sweetness of vanilla. Plus, the marination allows the apples to soften, so that all the flavors meld together and infuse the fruit, creating a pie filling that packs an even more delicious punch.

Lindasphotography/Getty Images

Marinating apples in melted ice cream is very similar to making a Dutch apple pie, which gets its richness from heavy cream. Here, you're simply swapping the heavy cream for ice cream. You only need about a ½ cup of melted ice cream for every 2½ pounds of sliced apples, but you can tweak this based on your preference. Pour the ice cream into your apple filling mixture and allow it to marinate at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours.

While vanilla is one of the best ice cream flavors to use in the filling, you can always switch it up. For instance, opting for salted caramel ice cream can nicely balance the sweetness of the apple pie while complementing the warmth of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger packed inside. You could even tie it all together with a drizzle of caramel sauce on top. Or, lean into the spiciness of the pie and go with a cinnamon ice cream instead.

Melted pistachio, walnut, or pecan ice creams are also fantastic options to give your apple pie a nutty and more buttery depth. Consider picking a pint that has chopped pieces of nuts inside, and you'll get a mix of a creamy, gooey filling, crisp pastry, and a crunchy contrast from the nuts in each bite. Marinating apples in ice cream is really an open playbook with no wrong answers, so experiment away!