Copy LinkWe’ve celebrated a love for all things cool, soft and sweet for hundreds of years in the States, and the land of the free has always been the beating heart of ice cream innovation!
This 4th of July, we wanted to try a recipe that celebrates the brave pioneers that helped build our home and the rich ice cream landscape that we enjoy today. In honor of these American trailblazers, we present the Gingerbread Apple Pie à la Mode!
Ingredients
Gingerbread crumble
- 1 tablespoon ground allspice
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon ground ginger
- ⅓ tablespoon ground cloves
- ⅓ tablespoon ground nutmeg
- 1 ⅓ blocks unsalted butter
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon cooking salt
Apple pie
- 6 medium-sized apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Store-bought pie pastry
- Philadelphia-style vanilla ice cream
Crafting the gingerbread crumble
- While the butter is still cold, dice it into chunks and empty it into a large mixing bowl. Pour in the spices, brown sugar, oats, salt and flour, and get to mixing!
- Once you’ve mixed everything together and all butter pieces are coated, you can start to mash the butter into the dry ingredients. You can use a pinching, kneading motion with your fingers, and you’ll know it’s done when you have no visible pieces of butter and the mixture resembles crumbly wet sand!
Apple pie, assemble!
- Butter a 9-inch pie plate and gently drape the store-bought pie pastry over it. Don’t forget to roll out the pastry dough if the packaging instructions require it! Gently press the dough into the shape of the pie plate, and use kitchen shears to trim any excess overhang.
- Chuck the cored and sliced apples into a large mixing bowl along with the brown sugar, flour and cinnamon and mix well, ensuring that all the apple slices are coated with the dry ingredients. Pour the apples into the pie crust, and refrigerate for at least an hour before baking.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Bake the pie at 400°F for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for another hour. If your crumble crust starts to get a lil too brown, pop some aluminum foil over it to prevent further browning.
- Once the pie is bubbling and a beautiful golden brown, remove it from the oven and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
Now it’s time to assemble your masterpiece! To serve, you can simply plate up a slice of freshly baked apple pie with a generous helping of sumptuous Philly-style vanilla ice cream. Feel free to add any toppings of choice – caramel drizzle, slices of fresh apple, peanuts; it’s entirely up to you!
This delightfully familiar dessert features a few unique components that come together to become something greater than its parts – just like the States!
Have you ever heard the phrase “as American as apple pie”? When talking about quintessential American desserts, odds are that apple pie will be at the top of the list! It may come as a surprise to learn that apple pie didn’t originate in the US – and neither did apples! European varieties were brought from the old world, along with traditional recipes like English apple pie, which at the time included figs, pears and raisins.
The modern ‘American’ apple pie is a lot simpler, but we’ve opted to level it up with a gingerbread crumble inspired by an extraordinary American (who’s soon set to grace the new $20 bill); Harriet Tubman! Apart from being a powerful force in the civil rights movement, Harriet Tubman trained as a professional chef and developed recipes that included plenty of sweet treats that drew from a variety of culinary cultures. During the Civil War, Tubman famously doubled as both a nurse and a spy, but she also opened an eatery in Beaufort where she sold root beer pies and gingerbread to Union soldiers.
The last component of our pie is absolutely essential because no dessert pie in MOIC is complete without a healthy dollop of ice cream! For this Patriot Pie’s perfect scoop, we’re taking a page from the cookbook of the revolutionary chef Augustus Jackson, who is hailed as the father of modern ice cream! His innovations revolutionized the way ice cream was commercially produced, which helped democratize the consumption of our favorite frosty treat at a time when ice cream was a luxury product. One of his notable contributions was a recipe for eggless ice cream, which birthed the Philadelphia-style ice cream that we still love scooping today!
Here’s Museum of Ice Cream wishing all our scoops a very Happy 4th of July!
