Apple Pie Angel Biscuits are southern style biscuits baked in a cast iron skillet and topped with cinnamon apple pie filling and elegant drizzle of gooey cream cheese icing.
Food-centric holiday lovers, rejoice! It’s Thanksgiving Week! My heart feels like it’s overflowing with thankfulness for everything around me. For one, we actually completed all of the outdoor chores required for us to batten-down-the-hatches for winter. We had no idea when we moved to the country that we’d have so many extra chores to do to ready our property and equipment for the winter. There’s a ton of continual maintenance stuff to get done in the fall: caulking windows and doors on the outbuildings, inspecting the outbuildings for sneaky field mice entry holes and plugging them, inspecting all of the roofs, testing the snow removal equipment, erecting the snow fencing in the open areas so that we don’t wake up to 6 ft. snow drifts against the doors each morning–I wish I were kidding about that one–the list goes on and on!
Part of my outdoor chores include harvesting and pruning the fruit trees. Part of my little dream of living in the country is to plant a miniature pie/jam orchard on the property. Lucky for us, our house sits on land that was once a thriving orchard! Sadly, most of the fruit trees were cleared when our house was built, but we do have a few trees left standing. None of said trees blossomed nor bore fruit last year. Last spring, I decided to try to revive the fruit trees on the property and see how that went before planting an orchard. Seems reasonable seeing that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing with regard to cultivating an orchard!
Thankfully, my BFF Amazon has a wealth of fruit growing resources to guide the way. My favorite book thus far is The Fruit Gardener’s Bible: A Complete Guide to Growing Fruits and Nuts in the Home Garden
Look! It worked! Both my cherry and apple trees bore fruit this year! The cherry tree bore enough fruit for us to snack on and bake a couple of sweet cherry rhubarb pies. But get a load of all of the apples on this apple tree! I did absolutely nothing to the fruit trees other than a light pruning, and they flourished! This is my first learning year, so the fruit wasn’t perfect. In fact, some of the apples are downright wonky in shape, but they’re still tasty! I’m already consulting The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way
The first improvement? Better pruning and sanitizing of the orchard. Did you know that orchards must be sanitized? Neither did I! Sanitizing is basically clearing all of the fruit and debris that falls from the tree so that pests or blight are unable to “overwinter” and re-infect the tree in the spring. The more you know! I won’t bore you with all of the other nerdy fruit-tree-orchard-growing tidbits that I’ve picked up along the way, but believe me when I tell you that the science behind how the fruit trees produce is truly fascinating!
I enlisted the help of Sons #1 & #3 to clear the fallen fruit and branches as I climbed all up in this apple tree’s business and thinned out the branches. As in, majorly thinned out the branches so that she doesn’t look so wild and overgrown. I’m still praying that I didn’t hurt her in the process. We’ll see how she looks in the spring. I realize that she looks a touch Charlie Brown Christmas compared to where she started from, but I just know she’ll fill out beautifully come spring!
This year, this particular apple tree bore several bushes of apples. The apples are red with a soft, sweet flesh, so I’m guessing that we have a Johnathan tree? I’m still researching to be sure. Regardless of the varietal, the apples are perfect for making overnight apple butter or these Apple Pie Angel Biscuits.
Our apple harvest/tree trimming adventures coincided with the time I was working on the Angel Yeast Biscuits recipe. We were literally tripping over apples, so Son #1 sautéed a few with cinnamon sugar for his morning oatmeal. He made way more cinnamon apples than he needed, so he offered me the surplus. I’d just pulled a tray of Angel Biscuits out of the oven, I sampled one with his apples over top.
Oh, man! Was that ever good! So good that I immediately whipped up another batch of biscuits for the express purpose of making an Apple Pie Angel Biscuits version. While the biscuits were in the oven, I decided to work a little cream cheese icing into the equation. Because obviously.
The resulting Apple Pie Angel Biscuits are nothing short of amazing. The biscuits are light and fluffy, and the sweet apple topping is completely delicious. Apple Pie Angel Biscuits are southern style biscuits baked in a cast iron skillet and topped with cinnamon apple pie filling and elegant drizzle of gooey cream cheese icing. We couldn’t get enough, so I made these Apple Pie Angel Biscuits for days!
It seemed like the right thing to do to celebrate completing my outdoor chores before the first snowfall. I also finished in time for me to have a tiny bit of surgery on my foot. For now, I’ll have to forgo climbing trees in favor of binge-ing on The Office: The Complete Series
Print the Apple Pie Angel Biscuits recipe and bake some today!
Calories
Fat
Carbs
Protein
Kirsten Kubert
Yields 12 Servings
Apple Pie Angel Biscuits are southern style biscuits baked in a cast iron skillet and topped with cinnamon apple pie filling and elegant drizzle of gooey cream cheese icing.
1 hr, 30 Prep Time
30 minCook Time
2 hrTotal Time
Save RecipeIngredients
- For the Biscuits:
- 2 C. all purpose flour
- 1 Tbs. baking powder
- ½ tsp. baking soda
- ¾ tsp. salt
- 1 ¼ tsp. instant (rapid rise) yeast
- 1 Tbs. granulated sugar
- 5 Tbs. very cold unsalted butter
- ½ C. plus 6 Tbs. 2% milk
- ½ tsp. white vinegar
- For the Apple Pie Topping:
- 3 small apples
- 1 Tbs. granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ tsp. unsalted butter
- For the Cream Cheese Icing:
- 3 Tbs. cream cheese, softened
- ¼ C. powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp. clear vanilla extract
- 2 Tbs. 2% milk, more or less, to achieve desired consistency
- Also Required:
- Seasoned 12-inch cast iron skillet
- 1 ½ tsp. unsalted butter, softened
Instructions
- Grease the bottom and sides of a seasoned 12-inch cast iron skillet with 1 ½ tsp. of softened butter; set aside.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, yeast, and sugar. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Quickly run the cold butter through the large holes of a box grater to shred it over the dry ingredients. Gently toss the shredded butter to separate and coat with the flour mixture.
- Stir the vinegar into the milk. Gradually add 1 ½ C. of milk, lightly folding it into the dry ingredients to combine. Add additional milk, as necessary, until dough just comes together and pulls away from the side of the bowl without being overly wet or sticky. All of the milk may not be required for the dough to come together, depending on flour density and/or humidity in the kitchen.
- Turn dough out onto a clean and lightly floured work surface or pastry mat. Lightly flour the top of the dough. Then, gently flatten the dough with your hands to form a 1-inch thick rectangle. Gently knead the dough by folding it onto itself in thirds (envelope style), and then lightly flatten into another rectangle. Turn the dough a quarter turn and repeat this process 3 times. Having a light touch is the key to avoid over-working the dough or else the biscuits will be tough. Slow and gentle kneading is the key.
- Press or roll the kneaded dough into a large rectangle, ½-inch thick. Cut the biscuits as close together as possible using a 3-inch diameter biscuit cutter. Push straight down to cut the biscuits. Do not turn the biscuit cutter while cutting, as doing so will hinder the even rise of the biscuits. Piece together remaining dough and repeat the process until all of the dough is used.
- Arrange the biscuits in the prepared cast iron skillet about an inch apart. Cover the biscuits with a clean kitchen towel, setting them in a warm, draft free place to rise until the biscuits have noticeably risen in height—about 1 hour.
- While the biscuits are rising, prepare the apple filling by peeling, coring, and dicing the apples. Five small apples should yield six cups of diced apples. Melt the butter in a skillet set over medium heat. Once the butter begins to froth, stir in the diced apples. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon over the apples, stirring well to coat the apples. Sauté the apple mixture until apples for 3 to 5 minutes or until the apples are just tender but not yet soft. Remove the apples from the heat. Transfer the apple filling to a glass or ceramic bowl to cool to room temperature.
- While the apple pie filling is cooling, prepare the cream cheese icing by blending the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla together in a small bowl. Slowly incorporate enough of the milk to achieve an icing that is thick yet smooth in consistency. The icing should cling to a fork for a second before slowly drizzling off the end. Cover the icing bowl with plastic wrap and set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Once the biscuits have sufficiently risen, evenly spoon the cooled apple pie filling over top. Bake at the 375 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes or until the biscuits are puffy and beginning to brown.
- Set cast iron skillet to cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before drizzling cream cheese icing over all. Serve warm.
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