In the United States, apple pie served à la mode is topped with ice cream.
The phrase à la mode means “in the current fashion” or “fashionable style” in French, but in American dessert terminology it means a serving of pie with ice cream. Vanilla is the classic pairing, though other flavors can be used. The cold, creamy ice cream contrasts with warm apple filling and crisp pastry.
The dessert’s origin story is disputed. Charles Watson Townsend is often credited with ordering apple pie and ice cream at the Cambridge Hotel in New York during the 1890s. A competing claim traces the phrase to John Gieriet’s Hotel la Perl in Duluth, Minnesota, where an 1885 menu listed pie with ice cream.
A common mix-up is treating à la mode as a sauce or a sprinkle. Powdered sugar and caramel sauce may accompany apple pie, but neither defines the term. The defining addition is ice cream served alongside or on top of the pie.