Martha Stewart Vs. Ina Garten Apple Pie: I Baked Both, Clear Winner

Her recipe called for flour, butter, sugar, ice water, and salt.

This is where I hit my first roadblock. My food processor wasn’t big enough to fit all of the mixture, so I had to split it up and do multiple rounds of the mixture.

I then slowly mixed in ice water. Using cold ingredients like ice water and chilled butter helps keep the dough flaky for baking.

Since it would’ve been too difficult to portion out the water in the smaller food processor, I combined it all in my standing mixer.

That’s for the top and bottom crusts. The recipe instructed that I should flatten both halves into discs.

This crust was pretty firm even before I put it away to chill. It didn’t stick to the cutting board at all.

Garten’s recipe is similar bar one ingredient: It calls for flour, ice water, sugar, salt, butter, and shortening. I used Crisco.

Maybe it was the addition of the shortening; maybe I added too much ice water; maybe I made some other rookie mistake — but this dough was sticky.

I had to coat my hands in flour to get it out of the bowl and off the mixing tool.

It took a few minutes for me to successfully roll Garten’s dough into a ball without leaving too much behind on the cutting board.

The Barefoot Contessa’s recipe didn’t say I should split the dough in half before chilling it, so I kept it in one ball.

I decided I didn’t have the mental fortitude to attempt making the pies on the same day, so I gave myself a full night to prepare.

Both recipes recommended using Granny Smith apples, since they’re firmer and don’t get mealy when heated up.

Garten’s recipe said to use 4 pounds of sliced apples. Thankfully, I had a food scale, otherwise I would’ve been eyeballing it. I ended up using nine large Granny Smith apples.

I needed:

• A zested lemon
• A zested orange
• 2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of fresh orange juice
• ½ cup of sugar
• ¼ cup of flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• ¾ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon of ground allspice

Thankfully, I have a manual juicer, otherwise I would’ve been in trouble.

I was concerned the orange zest and orange juice would make this taste a bit too citrusy, but I trusted the process — I was sure the Contessa would not lead me astray.

It may look good here, but let me tell you, I thought this was going to be the death of me.

I had to use what felt like a gallon of flour to make sure this wasn’t getting stuck to my hands, the rolling pin, or the board. I couldn’t believe that after nearly a full day in the fridge, it was still this soft.

Once I finally got it to a good size and texture, I couldn’t get it into the pie dish. It was sticking to the board.

Flour was everywhere. But at this point I was so frustrated that covering my kitchen with flour was a price I was willing to pay.

But wouldn’t you know — even after flipping it upside down, the crust was still partially stuck to the cutting board.

Although I was concerned there were too many apples, I had come this far following Garten’s recipe and it was too late to turn back now.

I will never understand how people make this look easy. My crust was simultaneously too thin and not big enough.

If I stretched the top any more, the apples would start poking holes. But there wasn’t enough to pinch the top and bottom together.

At some point, I gave up and brushed it with the egg wash (one egg and 1 tablespoon of water beaten together) all over, and sprinkled it with sugar.

The pie baked for an hour and 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

To put it simply: It’s not great looking. But I was excited to see how it tasted. Who cares if it wasn’t at bakery quality?

After letting it sit for a couple of hours, I excitedly dug in.

Besides the extreme sogginess of the bottom crust, which I know even the most experienced bakers have trouble with, I thought the orange taste was overpowering.

And unfortunately for me, I don’t like orange-flavored things. So when I bit into this apple pie and it tasted like an orange pie, I almost gagged.

Once I got over the initial orange-forward flavor, I thought the crust and the apples tasted good. I especially liked a slice paired with vanilla ice cream.

But overall, I was not pleased with how this turned out.

After making Garten’s recipe, I felt like I had been standing for two hours. My back couldn’t take baking another full pie.

So the next day, I spent 10 minutes peeling, coring, and slicing 12 apples — three more than I had used for Garten’s recipe.

I have to admit, for both Stewart and Garten’s recipes, I probably should’ve cut the apples into smaller pieces, but I was already so tired from using the slicer that I just couldn’t face any further work. Lesson learned!

This recipe called for:

• 2 tablespoons of flour
• ¾ cup of sugar
• The zest and juice of one lemon
• 1 ½ teaspoons of cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon of nutmeg
• A pinch of ground cloves

In other words: Compared to Garten’s recipe, it contained less flour, more sugar, no oranges, more cinnamon, and cloves instead of allspice.

This is something writers like to call foreshadowing.

Still, this experience was better. I’d take getting a workout while rolling dough over making a mess of my entire kitchen with flour and sticky dough any day.

I should’ve known that I wasn’t going to be able to fit all the apples in my pie dish, but I was still annoyed at the waste.

This recipe called for 2 tablespoons of butter to be cut and spread out on top of the apples before putting the top crust on.

After I brushed this with the egg wash, crimped the edges, dusted it with sugar, and cut vents in the top, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

My first pie attempt wasn’t even solid enough to cut vents into.

It baked in the oven for an hour at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Is this the perfect-looking apple pie? No. But it’s definitely better than my first try.

After letting it sit for an hour, I cut into my pie. I was surprised to see how hollow the top was. It’s possible I should’ve created bigger vents for steam to escape the pastry.

However, thankfully, it wasn’t as soggy as my first pie.

I preferred the taste of this pie much more than Garten’s recipe — this tasted like apples and cinnamon and sugar, not orange.

As my dad noted after taking a bite, it might not look great, but it tasted how it was supposed to.

I can confidently say I never want to bake apple pie again, and I definitely never want to make my own crust again.

If you prefer a tangier apple pie, then I’d say Ina Garten’s is the one for you — just make sure you have buckets of flour on deck.

But if you’re looking for a more classic sweet apple pie, go with Martha Stewart, although both pair deliciously with vanilla ice cream.

This was a challenge for me, someone who considers themselves an OK baker at best. This Thanksgiving, I’ll be sticking with my Stop and Shop pies, thank you very much.