Martha Stewart's Apple Pie Secret Is All About The Butter

For many households, the holidays mean our dinner tables see a lot of a true-blue American culinary icon: apple pie. Apples are in season from August to November, so the absolute freshest ones you can buy are available just in time for fall. It's for this reason that a lot of folks start sharing their secret tips for baking apple pie. The fruit is at its absolute best, so it only makes sense to get the most out of them with the right techniques. For Martha Stewart, that means using a staple of the restaurant world to zhuzh up her apple pie filling. In addition to lemon juice, brown and white sugar, salt, flour, and vanilla bean, Stewart mixes in browned butter to amp up the flavor of her pies.

Browned butter is a versatile ingredient that improves pies, drastically boosts your cookies' flavor, and goes into a wide variety of dishes from mac and cheese to lobster. It's also incredibly easy to make: Just cook butter over medium heat while stirring constantly until it turns golden brown and develops a nutty aroma. Once you let it cool a little, pour it straight onto your apples — make sure to include any milk solids that have settled on the bottom — and mix everything together to make an unforgettable filling for your apple pie.

Browned butter boosts the flavor of apple pie in several ways. The most significant is achieved through the Maillard reaction. When the milk solids in butter are exposed to a certain temperature for long enough, they start to undergo complex chemical changes that release several volatile compounds as byproducts. These compounds are responsible for the new flavors and aromas that result from the Maillard reaction. In the case of browned butter, we're looking specifically at compounds called pyrazines, which are responsible for the nutty, earthy flavors that add complexity and balance to the sweetness and acidity of the apples.

At the same time, the heat also toasts the milk solids in the butter, giving the pie's flavor profile additional toffee-like notes. Browning butter also evaporates nearly all of the butter's water content, which concentrates all its flavors and results in a richer, more nuanced palate. If you want to give it a try without the commitment of a full pie, you can also make apple sauce with browned butter and see if the combination works for you.

Martha Stewart's other secret ingredient for her apple pie, vanilla bean, elevates things even further. Vanillin, the compound that gives vanilla its distinct taste, not only gives the pie an extra dose of sweetness and creaminess, but also helps hide bitter flavors. This comes in handy considering both the pyrazines and caramelized sugars in brown butter can taste a little burnt. By masking these burnt notes, the vanilla beans make the browned butter taste even more indulgent, which in turn makes your apple pie that much more decadent.