One of the classic meals served by Popeyes is its apple pie. As a restaurant specializing in classic southern American cooking, it would be out of place not to offer this classic dessert!
Apple pie is a favorite of many, as it deliciously combines the expertly rolled and prepared flaky crust with a warm, sugary soft inside full of tart granny smith apples.
This tasty treat has been around for hundreds of years, with the first recording of an apple pie being in 1390! The Popeyes Apple Pie brought a new twist to the ancient desert by making a product that can serve one and is easy to eat on the go without the need for cutting and serving or a fork and a plate to enjoy.
The pocket-style wrapping of the flaky dough crust around the delectable inner apple filling makes it perfect for an on-the-go snack or treat. While Popeyes isn’t the only restaurant out there to make this style of pie dessert, they certainly offer one of the tastier versions!
For more information on Popeyes, its history, and details on this tasty dessert they offer, keep reading below!
History of Popeyes
Established in 1972, Popeyes has been serving classic southern Louisiana-style meals nationwide. This classic southern restaurant was initially opened in Arabi, Louisiana, where it was first named “Chicken on the Run.”
This first store was then renamed “Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken” only two years later. After seeing great success, the store continued growing and expanding into new states and even into Canada in 1984.
All of this success led to Popeyes purchasing a competitor company called “Church’s Chicken,” which also specialized in fried chicken and chicken meals. A few years later, though, Church’s Chicken was sold again to Arcapita, leaving only Popeyes in the ring.
As Popeyes expanded throughout the US, the corporation reached a milestone in 2001 of going public and its initial public offering of one hundred and forty-two million.
Since then, it has continued to grow into the massive corporation that we know today. Even now, Popeyes has nearlythree thousand locations throughout fifteen hundred cities in the United States.
The store has expanded into many other countries, including Canada, China, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Turkey, the UK, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, among many others.
Significance of Apple Pie
Having started in England, apple pie is a dessert that combines both the sweetness of the sugary filling with the tartness of a green apple and the salty buttery crust of the pie. These features were found in the first apple pie in England. The apple pie we know and love today is not quite the same, however, as the modern apple pie was heavily influenced by French culinary techniques.
The Popeyes Apple Pie is an even more modern version of the classic apple pie as well, being made portable and in a smaller serving size. Served in a pocket of buttery, flaky dough filled with sweet and tart apple filling, it is a game changer when it comes to on-the-go treats.
The Popeyes apple pie has reimaged the crust used for this pie too! With an added coating of cinnamon and sugar, it gives the pie an even more robust flavor without so much alteration that it becomes a new dessert.
Apple pies have a great deal of cultural significance around the world, especially in the US. Having been featured in American songs such as Don McLean’s eponymous hit “American Pie” it is a dessert known to be enjoyed on the 4th of July, American Independence Day. The association of apple pie with the US started years before the country was formed when individuals from the Netherlands showed the Pilgrims how to combine dough and apples.
It soon became a traditional dish. When the country became involved in World War II, soldiers began to use apple pie as a metonymy for the United States. When the press industry asked soldiers why they enlisted in the military, a common phrase was “for mom and apple pie,” which was meant “to protect families and the US.”
During this war, there was a massive effort to conserve supplies in the daily life of every citizen so that there was enough food to feed the soldiers overseas. Apple pie was one of the few desserts that could be easily made with rations that were available throughout the US at the time, and many households made it as an alternative to more intricate dishes.
Because it helped the war effort, Apple pie came to be called “victory apple pie.”
Ingredients for Making Popeyes Apple Pie
The ingredients needed for making a classic Apple Pie from Popeyes are easy to find! An easy DIY Popeyes Apple Pie recipe calls for the following ingredients:
- Puff Pastry*
- Vegetable Oil
- Apples (X4)
- Butter
- Raw Sugar
- Cornstarch
- Pumpkin Spice
- Cinnamon Sugar
*It is easy to find store-bought premade puff pastry, but even tastier when you make your own homemade puff pastry dough! If you’re interested, the ingredients for an easy puff pastry are listed here:
- Flour
- Chilled Butter
- Salt
- Egg
- Chilled Butter
Whether you make your Popeyes apple pie entirely from scratch or get your dough premade, you are guaranteed to enjoy the results from this iconic recipe. Just using some supplies you can find around that house, you can and enjoy it as if you’d taken the trip to your local Popeyes!
How to Make Popeyes Apple Pie
The apple pie we all know and love, made at Popeyes, is surprisingly simple to make. You’ll find the instructions below!
Filling:
To make your filling, you’ll need to start by peeling the apples as thoroughly as you can and cutting them into cubes. Remember that the Popeyes pie is relatively small, so the apple pieces should be much smaller than in a traditional apple pie for the best results.
Combine the apple cubes from all four apples with one teaspoon of pumpkin spice, a teaspoon of cornstarch, two tablespoons of butter, and half of a cup of sugar in a large pan with the heat on medium. The mixture should turn into a gooey filling consistency. When the apple cubes are cooked to your liking based on crunch, they are ready.
Next, remove the filling from the heat and allow it to cool fully before moving to the next step.
Construction and Cooking:
First, you must roll out your dough (whether homemade or bought) and cut it into rectangles that are about 2.5″ X 4″. With the apple filling at room temperature, place little spoonfuls into the center of the rectangles. Make sure you skip every other rectangle. The ones without the filling will be used as the top part of the apple pie!
Place these empty dough rectangles atop those with the filling to create little envelopes with the filling inside. Use a fork to press the edges together in a crimped shape. This will seal all the filling material inside.
Prepare a deep fryer with oil and use it to fry each of the apple pies until golden brown. These can also be fried on the stovetop if you don’t have a deep fryer on hand! If you are frying on the stove top, 2 minutes on each side should do the trick!
After pulling them out of the fryer, add the cinnamon sugar on top. Doing this when they’re still hot and fresh from the fryer will help the cinnamon stick to the apple pie as it cools. If you so choose, the pies are ready to eat right away, or they can be saved and enjoyed later once they’ve cooled.
Popeyes Apple Pie Nutritional Facts
After taking a look at the nutritional information, we can happily report that Popeyes Apple Pies are a pretty great option when it comes to desserts! It’s not necessarily a “health food,” but it isn’t terrible for you either!
This tasty treat has a total of 320 calories, with 54 being calories from fat. Continuing the breakdown, it has 3 grams of protein and 12 grams of sugar.
For anyone looking to cut down on sugar intake, this might not be the best dessert for you. But for a nice treat once in a while, it is a wonderful option! Most of the nutrition in this dessert comes in the form of carbs, as there are 40 grams of carbohydrates.
If you need some quick energy with your snack, the carbohydrate content in this will make it the right option for you! As an added benefit, Popeyes apple pie also has 2 grams of fiber, which is 8% of the daily nutrition value the average person should get.
Why Choose the Popeyes Apple Pie?
There are plenty of restaurants that offer these single-serving-sized apple pie desserts, for example, McDonald’s and Burger King. But what makes Popeyes so much tastier? After having done some taste testing, we can tell you!
While they are all tasty treats, the Popeyes Apple Pie has a few features that make it that much more enjoyable than its competitors. Most important is the extra dusting of cinnamon sugar on top of the pie, giving it more dimension and flavor.
When comparing it with McDonald’s – the fancy dough pattern on top is nice for presentation, but it makes it messier to enjoy without adding anything to the flavor. For an easier and tastier treat, Popeyes is the way to go!
Final Thoughts
Apple pie has been a staple of Western culture and cooking for hundreds of years, with its origins in Europe in the 1300s. The influence of the dish even traces back to French culinary arts and Ottoman techniques too! Today, many people in the US celebrate their Independence Day with apple pie, as it has become a traditional dessert of the nation.
Even now, the dish continues to evolve, as restaurants like Popeyes have revolutionized it once more to be a handheld on-the-go treat. This has made it easier to enjoy the tasty treat, even if you don’t have the time to sit down and cook a treat large enough to feed a family!
Whether you’re looking to make it at home or simply love to know more about your favorite foods, you now know all there is to know about this American classic!
