Blushing Prickly Pear and Apple Pie Recipe

Excerpted from ‘50 Pies, 50 States’ by Stacey Mei Yan Fong

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Published July 26, 2023

Pie with cutout of coyote howling at moon on top of crust

Alanna Hale

Active time: 30 minutes

Bake time: 1 hour

Total time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Makes one 10-inch pie

Arizona has no official state foods, so I did a deep dive into foods that are commonly found and eaten in Arizona. I struck gold with the prickly pear. This sweet, pink-purply fruit is gorgeous, soft and tender, and similar in texture and taste to dragonfruit, which I ate copious amounts of growing up. I had never tasted a prickly pear before developing this pie, and now I’m hooked. (Fun fact: The fruit is not actually a pear but a berry!) The trick with prickly pears is making sure to remove the microscopic, clear spines that cover its outer skin.

Blushing apples and candied ginger meld perfectly with the prickly pear: The ginger delivers a lot of sass and a little heat, and the apple serves as a neutral filler and texture builder to enhance and balance the sweetness of the pear. As the candied ginger cooks down, it gives the fruit in the filling a beautiful sheen. The best time to bake this pie is late summer through early winter, as that’s the peak season for prickly pears in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ingredients

Crust

All-Butter Crust (recipe here), rolled out; one for the base, one for the top, and an optional third one for extra decorations
½ teaspoon all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon granulated sugar
1 cup beet juice, reduced to one-third its volume (optional, instructions follow)

Egg wash

Combine 1 whole large egg, 1 large yolk and 2 tablespoons milk or water (whichever you have on hand) in a quart container and blend with an immersion blender or whisk until smooth.

Finishing sugar

I always have a quart container of finishing sugar mixed and ready to go. It is equal parts granulated white sugar and demerara sugar — the perfect mix to top your double-crust fruit pies or the crimps of your sweet crumble pies. The demerara sugar gives you that sugary crunch, and the white sugar gives you that golden, caramel-colored finished. Plus, demerara sugar is expensive, so the white sugar helps it go a little further.

Beet juice

To reduce the beet juice, pour into a medium saucepan on medium high heat and let it cook down until it is half its original volume.

Filling

4 medium prickly pears
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 medium Granny Smith apples, cored and shredded
2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger

Special equipment

Coyote and crescent moon cookie cutters (optional)
Paintbrush

Directions

Make the filling:

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Wearing rubber gloves, rinse the prickly pears, removing the fine spines by scrubbing the surface lightly with a sponge. Cut prickly pears in half and remove the seeds.

Scrape the flesh of the prickly pears into a medium saucepan and add the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon juice. Place over medium-high heat and reduce, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has the consistency of a thick puree. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and let cool completely. Mix in the apple and candied ginger.

Assemble the pie:

Fit the bottom crust into a greased 10-inch pie plate. Sprinkle the ½ teaspoons of flour and sugar on the bottom of the crust and swirl around with your fingers. Using a spoon, fill the crust with the cooled filling. Top with top crust and roll and crimp the edges to seal tightly.

If making the optional decorations, use the third pie crust to cut out a coyote and moon with cookie cutters. With the reduced beet juice, paint an Arizona sunset on the top crust. Place the coyote and moon on the top of the pie to create dimension. Brush the whole pie with the egg wash, avoiding any areas painted with beet juice. Sprinkle liberally with finishing sugar.

Bake the pie:

Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake on the center rack for 1 hour, rotating the pie clockwise every 15 minutes to make sure the pie cooks evenly, until golden brown. Cover the crust for the last 15 minutes if the edges are getting too brown. Cool for at least two hours before slicing and serving. Best enjoyed while watching a gorgeous sunset!