Why A Bit Of Lemon Juice Works Wonders In Apple Pie

When it comes to apple pies, these tips and tricks to make them even better are plentiful. However, one method that countless bakers and pastry aficionados swear by is using lemon juice when making apple pie. There are two notable ways to do this, with the more commonly used tactic being all about the preparation stage for your apples. Essentially, by soaking your apples in lemon juice after you core, peel, and slice them, you stop the apples from browning during preparation. This happens because the lemon juice's acidity prevents the apples from oxidizing, a process that occurs when peeled apples are exposed to oxygen for too long, causing them to turn brown. 

While browning apples aren't inherently bad for your apple pie, they aren't ideal for the pastry, so using your lemon juice to keep your apples in good shape goes a long way in the long run. Plus, soaking your apples in lemon juice can help counteract the sometimes overwhelming sweetness of apple pies, giving them a more balanced taste due to the juice's citrus acidity.

Beyond its usefulness alongside the apple slices themselves, lemon juice can also improve your apple pie's crust if you plan on making it at home. For those of you who weren't aware, lemon juice can work wonders within the dough or crust of your pastries as well, once again due to its acidity. Lemon juice's acidic nature can combine with flour to prevent — or at least slow down — gluten formation within the crust to make it softer and more tender. This comes at no expense to the taste, which will more or less remain in line with whatever recipe you're using, just with a more delectable physical consistency.

And, while lemon juice is the catch-all for these tricks, you aren't necessarily out of luck if you're out of the citrus. For both tricks, replacing the lemon juice with the seemingly magical liquid known as apple cider vinegar will yield similar results when you take your apple pie out of the oven.