The Apple (Pie) of My Eye

Now that autumn is in full swing in New York, all bright and crisp and blue (at least for today, anyway), it’s time we gave some serious thought to apples. Barrels and barrels of apples.

New York State produces an average of 29.5 million bushels of apples every year, second in the nation to Washington. While 53 percent of those apples are sold as fresh fruit, that leaves plenty left over for cider, applesauce, vinegar, and apple butter.

I don’t usually get excited about apple turnovers—as often as not, they’re leaden, gummy, and bland. But the difference in the version at Colson (on 9th Street and Sixth Avenue) is apparent from the moment you lift it up in your hand: it’s almost shockingly lightweight. Airy layers of super-crisp, delightfully flaky pastry envelop the fruit, their buttery richness providing a nice balance to the unusually tart soft-stewed apple filling. The crunchy sugar crust just makes it crazy.

It may look refined, with a shiny scrim of overlapping fruit slices lying neatly across its surface, but the apple tart ($9) at Ladybird Bakery (on Eighth Avenue near 11th Street) has a rustic heart that’s perfect for fall. Between that elegant surface and the buttery, crumbly base, Ladybird fills its tart with a chunky apple butter that gives the dessert a more natural, homespun quality and a lightness that you wouldn’t necessarily expect from something so French-looking.

Crêpe with Apples, Caramel, and Sea Salt at Crespella

I’ve never figured out how to eat a caramel apple on a stick, but it’s hard to deny the supremacy of that flavor combination (minus the stick). Crespella (on Seventh Avenue near 9th Street) seems to have borne this in mind while creating the perfect snack for cool autumn nights when you come home from work after the sun has fallen, feeling a little hungry and a little cranky and plenty self-indulgent. A perfectly crisp-edged crêpe folds around a filling of apples, cooked soft but with a little crunch left. The packet is then drizzled with caramel sauce, dusted with powdered sugar, and then sprinkled with coarse-grained sea salt, which practically makes it dinner. At $8, it’s on the pricey side, but sometimes a person needs a treat.

Salted Caramel Apple Pie at Four & Twenty Blackbirds

This Third Avenue pie shop (near 8th Street) has been in the salty caramel game since the beginning, and its maturity and experience in the genre shine brightly in the apple pie ($4.75 for a slice, $35 for a whole pie). No one element here stands out and calls attention to itself; the flavors relax and blend together into a rapturous mix of sweet, tart, and savory. And that perfect, flaky, buttery lattice crust can make a pie believer out of any cake loyalist.