Southern Fried Apple Pies (Dried-Apple Hand Pies)
Dried apples simmered soft and mashed with sugar and cinnamon, spooned onto 5-inch rounds of lard pastry, folded into half-moons, crimped with a fork and fried in lard at 350°F until blistered and lightly browned.
Fried pies are a mountain and farm tradition, and dried apples are the reason. North Carolina's state historic sites, describing apple desserts at Horne Creek Farm and its Southern Heritage Apple Orchard, say fried pies were small pastries cooked in a pan of hot lard on top of the stove, made with dried apples as the filling. The same site reprints a fried pie recipe from The Kentucky Housewife of 1839: stew the fruit until tender, mash it, season it, fold it into rounds of pastry, fry them in boiling butter until brown on both sides and dust them with sugar. That book says any fruit will do, but dried fruit is better than fresh.
The fried pie also became one of America's best-known fast food desserts. Nation's Restaurant News reported in June 2026 that McDonald's original fried apple pie began with Litton Cochran, an owner-operator in East Tennessee, whose wife Jo spent months perfecting the recipe before it went national. This recipe uses Horne Creek Farm's own pastry for fried pies.
🇺🇸 This one is American
Dried apples simmered soft and mashed with sugar and cinnamon, spooned onto 5-inch rounds of lard pastry, folded into half-moons, crimped with a fork and fried in lard at 350°F until blistered and lightly browned.
🇬🇧 The original
England baked apple pies centuries before America: a short pastry crust filled with apples, sugar and spice, the line that settlers carried across the Atlantic. See the English Apple Pie (Cooking Apples Under a Pastry Lid) recipe.
Why it works the kitchen science
Dried apples
Drying concentrates the apples' sugar and flavor, and simmering them back into a thick paste makes a filling dry enough to seal into thin pastry and fry without leaking or bursting.
Lard pastry
A lard dough stays tender and blisters into crisp, flaky bubbles in hot fat, and the egg and vinegar keep it pliable enough to fold without cracking.
Watch it in 60 seconds
Step by step
- Step 1
Make the filling: put the dried apples in a large saucepan, cover them with the water and simmer, partly covered and stirring often so they don't scorch, until very tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Mash them into a thick, chunky paste, much thicker than applesauce, cooking off any extra liquid. Stir in the sugar and cinnamon and cool completely.
- Step 2
Make the pastry: whisk the flour and salt and cut in the lard until it looks like coarse crumbs. Beat the egg with the ice water and vinegar, stir it in just until the dough holds together, then wrap it and refrigerate 30 minutes.
- Step 3
Divide the dough into 20 balls (about 1 1/2 oz each). On a floured counter, roll each into a thin circle about 5 inches across.
- Step 4
Put 2 tbsp of filling on one side of each circle, fold the other side over into a half-moon and crimp the edges firmly with a fork.
- Step 5
Heat 1/2 inch of lard in a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium heat to 350°F. Fry the pies 3 or 4 at a time, 2 to 3 minutes a side, until lightly browned and blistered.
- Step 6
Drain them on a wire rack set over a baking sheet, dust with sugar if you like and serve warm. Let them cool with space between them; stacked hot, they steam and go soft.
Southern Fried Apple Pies (Dried-Apple Hand Pies)
Serves 10 · about 20 hand pies · 1 hr 45 min total
Dried apple filling
- 6 oz (170 g) dried apples
- About 3 cups water
- 1/2 cup (100 g) sugar, or to taste
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon, or to taste
Pastry for fried pies
- 3 cups (360 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup (205 g) cold lard
- 1 large egg
- 10 tbsp ice water
- 2 tbsp vinegar
For frying
- About 1 1/2 cups (300 g) lard, enough for 1/2 inch in the skillet
- Sugar for dusting (optional)
Method
- Make the filling: put the dried apples in a large saucepan, cover them with the water and simmer, partly covered and stirring often so they don't scorch, until very tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Mash them into a thick, chunky paste, much thicker than applesauce, cooking off any extra liquid. Stir in the sugar and cinnamon and cool completely.
- Make the pastry: whisk the flour and salt and cut in the lard until it looks like coarse crumbs. Beat the egg with the ice water and vinegar, stir it in just until the dough holds together, then wrap it and refrigerate 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 20 balls (about 1 1/2 oz each). On a floured counter, roll each into a thin circle about 5 inches across.
- Put 2 tbsp of filling on one side of each circle, fold the other side over into a half-moon and crimp the edges firmly with a fork.
- Heat 1/2 inch of lard in a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium heat to 350°F. Fry the pies 3 or 4 at a time, 2 to 3 minutes a side, until lightly browned and blistered.
- Drain them on a wire rack set over a baking sheet, dust with sugar if you like and serve warm. Let them cool with space between them; stacked hot, they steam and go soft.
Adapted from North Carolina Historic Sites, Horne Creek Farm, "Apple Recipes" (Southern Heritage Apple Orchard). We follow it as written: "Horne Creek's Pastry for Fried Pies" of 3 cups flour, 1 cup lard, 1 egg, 1 tsp salt, 10 tbsp ice water and 2 tbsp vinegar, rolled into thin 5-inch circles, filled with 2 tbsp cooked apple filling, folded, crimped with a fork and fried in lard over medium heat until lightly browned, about 20 pies; and "Cooked Apple Filling for Fried Pies": dried apples covered with water in a large saucepan and simmered until tender, with sugar and cinnamon to taste, cooled. The site gives no amounts for the filling and no mixing method; the 6 oz of dried apples, 3 cups of water, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon, the mashing, the 30-minute chill, the 1/2 inch of lard, the 350°F frying temperature and the 2 to 3 minutes a side are ours. History from the same site's desserts page: which quotes The Kentucky Housewife (1839), and Nation's Restaurant News (Jonathan Maze, June 16, 2026). historicsites.nc.gov. Ingredient list follows the source; the method is in our own words.
All sources (3)
Tips
- Stir the filling often: scorched apples ruin the pies, and the paste sticks as it thickens (our tip).
- Seal well and keep the filling to 2 tbsp; overfilled pies leak in the fat.
- The Kentucky Housewife fried hers in butter and drained them on an upturned sieve.
- The Kentucky Housewife says any nice fruit works for fried pies, dried fruit being better than fresh.
The rules people argue about
What the sources agree on, what they don't, and what is just a good story.
- Fried pies must be made with dried apples. Disputed: North Carolina Historic Sites says they were made with dried apples; The Kentucky Housewife (1839) says any fruit, with dried preferred.
- Fry them in lard. Disputed: Horne Creek Farm fries in lard; The Kentucky Housewife fried in butter.
- McDonald's fried apple pie began in East Tennessee. Documented as Nation's Restaurant News's report: Litton Cochran suggested it and his wife, Jo, perfected the recipe.
- They're called half-moon pies. Folklore: the name is repeated online and credited to the Foxfire cookbooks, which we did not read.
Every other apple pie
English Apple Pie (Cooking Apples Under a Pastry Lid)
Chunks of tart cooking apples with honey, cinnamon and mixed spice piled into a deep pie dish under a single lid of butter shortcrust, glazed with egg and baked hot at 400°F until golden and bubbling.
Wiener Apfelstrudel (Viennese Apple Strudel)
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Appeltaart (Dutch Apple Pie)
A tall springform pie with a cookie-like brown sugar crust pressed in by hand, packed with precooked Golden Delicious apples, golden raisins and speculaas-style spices, topped with a crisscross of dough strips and baked at 375°F for about 75 minutes. Served "met slagroom", with whipped cream.
Versunkener Apfelkuchen (German Sunken Apple Cake)
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Not a cake at all: tart apples cooked with vanilla and lemon into a chunky sauce and chilled, breadcrumbs toasted golden in butter and sugar, and lightly whipped cream, layered in glasses just before serving.
Sharlotka (Russian Apple Sponge Cake)
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Classic American Apple Pie (Double Crust)
Eight cups of thin-sliced apples tossed with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, thickened with flour and cornstarch and dotted with butter, sealed between two flaky butter and shortening crusts, baked at 425°F and then 375°F until the filling bubbles hard through the vents.
Pennsylvania Dutch Apple Pie (Crumb Top)
One flaky shortening crust filled with 2 pounds of apples tossed with sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg, covered with a lumpy brown sugar and butter streusel instead of a top crust, baked at 425°F and then 350°F.
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Apples with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, molasses and butter baked between two crusts in a square pan at 425°F, then the top crust is slashed and pushed down into the juices in rough chunks, "dowdied", so it turns half crisp, half pudding.
Vermont Apple Pie with Cheddar Crust
A butter crust with grated sharp Vermont cheddar folded in, filled with sliced apples, sugar, maple syrup and apple pie spice, layered with thin slices of more cheddar under the top crust and baked at 375°F until browned. Vermont's 1999 state pie law names cheddar as one way to serve it.
Skillet Apple Crisp (One-Pan, About an Hour)
Apple wedges sautéed in butter in one ovensafe skillet and coated with reduced cider, covered with a pecan, oat and brown sugar crumble made with melted butter, and baked hot at 450°F for 15 to 20 minutes until the fruit is tender and the top deep golden.
Fried Apple Hand Pies (Inspired by McDonald's, Not Official)
A copycat of the original fried fast food apple pie, inspired by McDonald's, not official: diced apples sautéed in browned butter with brown sugar and cinnamon, sealed in rectangles of pie dough and deep-fried at 375°F until golden and shatteringly crisp.
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