Pie à la mode serves apple pie with what frozen topping?

Pie à la mode serves apple pie with ice cream.

The name pie à la mode describes pie served with a frozen scoop of ice cream, most commonly vanilla alongside warm apple pie. The contrast between hot pastry and cold, melting ice cream is the dessert’s defining feature. Although apple pie is the best-known pairing, the term can apply more broadly to other pies served with ice cream.

The French phrase à la mode means roughly “in the current fashion” or “fashionable.” In this American dessert name, it does not mean that the pie itself is prepared in a French style. The phrase also appears in other culinary expressions, including boeuf à la mode.

The dessert’s history is disputed. One tradition credits Charles Watson Townsend, who supposedly ordered apple pie with ice cream at the Cambridge Hotel in New York during the 1890s and later helped popularize the name at Delmonico’s in New York City. Another claim points to John Gieriet’s Hotel la Perl in Duluth, Minnesota, where a 1885 menu listed blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream.

Thus, the topping is certain even though the origin story is not. Sorbet, custard, and whipped cream may accompany pie, but they are not the defining frozen topping in pie à la mode.