Apple Raisin Sonker | Deep Dish Apple Pie

Make a delicious apple raisin sonker with this easy recipe featuring sliced apples, raisins, and a homemade pie crust. Perfect for fall and winter baking. Get the recipe now!

Have an abundance of apples this year and looking to do some fall baking? Give this deep dish apple sonker a try to fill your sweet tooth!

Backstory

If you’ve been around the blog for a while you know that I love to bake various fruit pies and have several different variations of apple pies:

• Apple Galette Recipe
• 7 Ways To Use Fresh Apples
• Apple Pie Bread | Cinnamon Apple Bread
• Mini Apples Pies, for the crust lover!
• Apple Turnovers
• All-American Apple Pie

I think the reason I like pies the most is because of the crust. I’ll face it, I looooove butter and I’m not afraid to admit it!

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My go-to, all-time favorite pie crust in the entire world is Julia Child’s Pastry Dough, Pie Crust Recipe. I can’t even count how many times I’ve made this pie crust – and with every type of fruit there is!

Recipe Inspiration

I created this recipe based off of a vintage 7.5×9 Pyrex dish I bought at an antique store in-between baseball games for my son one Sunday afternoon! When I saw this dish at the store, I just knew I had to have it! The color was so similar to the color of my green kitchen cabinets!

I was so excited to use it when we got home but wasn’t sure what to use it for. I started looking around my kitchen and found a couple of apples sitting in my fruit basket that were begging to be eaten. I’m not the biggest fan of eating plain apples. I like them best baked in savory pie crusts smother in cinnamon! Haha! I blame it on being a fall-born baby!

Luckily I had two homemade pie crusts chilling in the refrigerator, just enough to make a deep dish apple pie!

What Is A Sonker?

Ok, I have to admit, I had never heard of an “apple sonker” before I started writing this recipe post! I started doing research trying to figure out what to call this amazing “apple pie in a dish” that would make sense to my readers!

After searching for “apple pie in a rectangle Pyrex”, “deep dish apple pie”, “apple cobbler” and many other terms, I finally came across something called an “apple-plum sonker”…and guess what? It looked just like my apple pie in a rectangle! haha!

Turns out a sonker is a deep-dish, juicy pie baked in a rectangle dish. They are a Scottish inspired dessert that is famous in Surry County, North Carolina —> no wonder why I love it so much! I loved living in North Carolina!

Apple Sonker Ingredients

• Pie crust – store bought or go the extra mile and make your own, you’ll be so thankful you did!
• Apples – any kind of apple will work, I used Pink Lady apples
• Brown sugar – creates more moisture when baking because of the molasses content. I use light brown sugar
• Raisins – In my opinion, every apple pie needs raisins to raise it up a notch. You can use both golden raisins, regular brown raisins or even currants. Just be sure to add them because they take apple pie to the next level! I used sun-dried raisins

How To Make An Apple Raisin Sonker

Step 1: Peel and slice apples

Wash apples, remove apple skin with apple peeler, slice into 1/2″ thick slices

Step 2: Mix apples, raisins and brown sugar

In a bowl, toss apples and raisins with brown sugar

Step 3: Roll out pastry dough

On a lightly floured surface, roll two pastry doughs out to fit the bottom of your rectangular baking dish

Step 4: Assemble

Place one pastry dough in the bottom of the baking dish. Fill with apples filling. Top with second pastry dough, crimp edges and cut air holes in the center.

Step 5: Bake

Bake for 20 minutes at 425°F and then lower to 375°F for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Step 6: EAT!!

Let cool for a few minutes and then dig in and enjoy! Serve with ice cream!

The best part about baking pies, is that they don’t have to look professional or perfect. The fun is in reacting different pie edge crimps, designs and cutouts each time! 

More Fall Baking with Apples Recipes