Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie

Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie is delicious twist on the typical apple pie with an apple and caramel filling and cinnamon roll topper.

Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

I had been reading around somewhere online…you know how it is when you browse from one story to another like skiing slaloms down a slope and the place you started at gets easily lost? So I don’t even recall where it was but the subject came up about a cinnamon roll pie. And I thought “Wow!” what a fabulous idea to use the cinnamon rolls as the crust! Well as the conversation went on, people were discussing how the underneath hadn’t even cooked- was basically still raw dough, how the apples weeped water and sogged everything, etc. So I set it out of my mind as one of those things that ends as a Pinterest fail- you know the photo on this pie looked fabulously mouthwatering, but que sera.

I had been shopping sometime later, picking up a couple different kinds of apples to use just for a lattice top pie. I was on the way home when it suddenly hit me that it shouldn’t have had those cinnamon rolls underneath, that even if they down cook up, it would be altogether too thick. I hadn’t even realized my brain was still thinking about it as it sort of popped in there suddenly. But I think about cooking all the time, so maybe it’s not such a big surprise.

So I grabbed a roll of cinnamon rolls- just one to use on top, and decided to par bake a regular pie crust and make my own pie filling so it wouldn’t be watery. And even add in a jar of caramel ice cream topping that I was going to use on something but it morphed during development so the topping was leftover unused.

I had this on Thanksgiving, and made sure I had something else for dessert in case it hit the trash. But as it turns out, it is wonderful, and I seemed to work out the issues the pie someone else had. So I once again feel lucky and blessed in my cooking. I love how different it is. I hope you do as well. Let me know how you like it in the comments section if you give it a try.

I used some nice fresh apples in this. I recall it actually was in the past year when I was watching Jacques Pepin in a cooking video and he was peeling some apples and getting those prepped. He basically cored either end in cone shapes, peeled the outsides, then cut them in half and cut out the core with his knife. If you are not handy with a paring knife you can actually do the coring with a melon baller. Although I use a bird’s beak knife which is slightly curved for the top and bottom and also the peeling. I do use the melon baller for the seedy core and it cuts it more cleanly than I do with the knife. Just something for you to think about.

Tomorrow I am posting my recipe for Turkey Crepes Royale (finally). It’s meant as a Thanksgiving leftover recipe but you can easily use cooked chicken in this as well (in case you are out of turkey). I have a little video on making crepes to post with that. I don’t find crepes difficult at all. Hopefully after watching it you can feel empowered to go with it if you haven’t had such good luck before. Until then-

~Sue

Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie

Servings: 6-7
Time: 1hr 20mins
Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

1 pie crust, par baked 25 minutes and cooled
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 pounds pie baking apples, peeled, cored and chopped
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 ounces caramel ice cream topping
12.5 ounce tube cinnamon roll dough

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Par bake the bottom crust in a deep dish pie pan, placing parchment in the center and weighting it down with pie weights or dry beans. Allow crust to cool completely.
To prepare filling, heat butter in a nonstick skillet and add chopped/sliced apples with cinnamon, cooking until the apples become softened; add brown sugar and cook until sugar becomes thick and syrupy over the apples.
Pour half the caramel topping in the bottom of the crust, then top with the cooked apple filling. Drizzle remaining topping over the apples.
Open cinnamon roll dough and separate them, placing them on top of the pie as if you are baking them normally; there will be little spaces in between, but don’t worry.
Don’t put the icing pack on just yet.
Bake the pie for 35 more minutes, until cinnamon rolls are nicely browned and crust is also brown.
Cool pie completely then drizzle with icing pack.

From the kitchen of palatablepastime.com