I have an apple pie recipe that calls for cornstarch. I imagine it's for thickening it, but I have no cornstarch. Will flour work as well?

My mum said that it should work.

Yes. It’s not as critical to get that clear gel quality to it as with something like blueberries.

Flour should be fine though I’ve made apple pies for years without the flour or anything else sprinkled inside for thickening and they turn out fine.

For pie, it should be OK. For sauces, I know that flour will taste raw and gluey unless it is blended/cooked into a roux first.

Flour will work, so will quick cooking (not the pearl kind) tapioca.

Thanks @all

Yes, it’ll work just fine.

Into a bowl throw the sliced applies, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix well and then put in the pie crust. I have found if you do this, you don’t have spots of overly intense flavour. If you are using a really juicy applie, i.e. Mac you need the flour, however, if you are using a less juicy apple (granny smith) you don’t really need it. Hope that helps

A lot of apple pie recipes also use gelatin or pectin to make it thicken up. It sounds like you can use flour and it will be fine. I just made apple crisp, so I don’t need to worry about stuff like that.

I much prefer cornstarch than any other option mentioned. Yep, it’s for thickening. I would not like the texture or flavor of flour.
I enjoy pectin in candy.
I enjoy jello to go in pies but I still add cornstarch.

Yeah, and use lard.

i never use a thickener -just put the apples with some cin/sugar mixture and put on crust with some pats of butter. to me, a thick, gloppy apple pie reminds me of a store bought one. to me the nice thing about a homemade one is the purity of the apples without the glop.

what my mom and grandmother used to do is put a little cereal like cheerios or raisin bran or something similar and tasteless, put a little of that on bottom (on top of crust) before putting apples on. the cereal gets soaked with the juice from the apples, so it’s not cereal-texture, it just becomes like a sponge for the juice that will come out of the apples. i mean put a thin layer – like maybe a cup total for the entire pie, spread to about a quarter inch thick.

Thanks you guys! @jca I don’t think I’ve ever used corn starch or flour before either, even though I’ve used the same recipe for years….we’ll see!

@Val123
@jca

I’ve always used corn starch. Just a bit. Never had any “glop”, lol.

@jca

Aren’t all those little round Cheerio rings on the bottom going to look a bit weird when you’re eating a slice?

I can’t help it, there’s just something kinda strange about the concept of Cheerios in something as iconic as Apple pie. The families of our forefathers didn’t have any Cheerios. Didn’t you ever watch “Little House on the Prairie”?

:)

@RedPowerLady Guess I better get me some!
@Buttonstc I have a cook book that I do declare is my Bible of Cookbooks! Written in 1939. You won’t find chocolate chips in there! When it comes to cooking chicken, they first tell you how to kill the chicken and pluck the feathers!

Do they also tell you how to gut the turkey?

@Buttonstc Yes. How to gut everything. AND what to use the guts for in cooking. And how to make hogshead pudding. You name it. They have instructions for cooking over a wood fired stove, too (kind of like, “If you have a touch tone phone do this. If you have a rotary phone, do this” that we have today! It was from this book that I got the idea of putting stuffing under the skin, as well as in the bird. Oh, so yummy, because the stuffing flavors get right into the meat more than it gets in from just the inside.

I belong to the group of people who have never added any kind of flour to an apple pie must admit it sounds kind of strange to me

@Adagio When was the last time you baked an apple pie from scratch? HA

If you are adverse to flour and corn starch, then try kicking it up a notch and use file-that will definitely thicken it.

@Buttonstc : the cheerios turn into a kind of soft crust – they become indistinguishable. you don’t see them at all – they just become a mushy apple-y tasting soaker to all the juices that will run out of the apples and for some pies, can turn into a pool at the bottom of the pie dish.

@Val123 what other kind is there?

@Adagio The ones you buy at the grocery store? Or, like, you buy a pre-made crust, and canned apples and stuff?

@Val123 nah, not my style

@Adagio Me either….but man. I can NOT seem to get a pie crust recipe that doesn’t require WWIII to get it to work for me….

Cooks Country (which is connected with America’s Test Kitchen) featured one on a recent show. They have a really good reputation for foolproof recipes of all types.

It should be still up on their website.

@Val123 Did you say you need a good pie crust recipe?? Hehe Because I would never suffer with a store bought one. Ick. Ours (family recipe) is pretty simple. Hardest part is getting the crust into the dang pie dish but we came up with a neat trick for that.

Mine looks like a recreation of Pangaea, breaking apart into different continents, when I roll it out! (But to get it in the dish, I just roll it up on the rolling pin, then unroll it into the pie plate..then commence a game of Pangaea Jig Saw Pie Crust! I WILL reverse the effects of plate tectonics! )

@Val123 My grandmother always told me that sometimes you have to “piece together” a good pie crust. But if you use wax paper instead then Pangaea is less likely to happen. Just tape the paper down. Roll out your crust on the paper. Then untape. Put pie dish (upside down) on pie crust and flip using wax paper. Stays together pretty well. I’ve tried tons of methods and so far this is the best.

@RedPowerLady I’ll keep that in mind…thanks. But I think….. it’s the recipe more than anything else that’s hosed. Pie crust is kind of like bread, or pancakes. If you do it enough you get a feel for what needs to be added to get the consistency you want. However, I only do homemade pie crust once a year! But…I’ll sure keep the wax paper in mind.