How to make a gooey apple pie

The only trick I know of is to use a different variety of apple-- some will turn to complete mush, while others stay firm. Unfortunately, unlike potatoes, they don't tend to be marked at the super market as to which variety they are.

Now, I'm not familiar with Bramley, but from what I've found, it's compared to Granny Smith, which tends to hold up well in pies.

I'd recommend blind baking your crust, if you aren't already, so the filling isn't in there as long, and possibly going with a thicker slice of apple when you're cooking, in hopes they won't break down as quickly.

update : in checking CookWise, there's a comment in the apple pie recipe that "briefly sautéing and poaching apples softens them slighly before the sugar, which prevents cells falling apart and preserves texture, is added"

In November 2007 a recipe was published in Cooks Illustrated for a Foolproof Pie dough with vodka. That recipe was created by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt who was one of the chefs on America's Test Kitchen and writer for Cooks Illustrated. He has an article about the recipe here http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/07/the-food-lab-the-science-of-pie-how-to-make-pie-crust-easy-recipe.html?ref=sweets-sb3. As far as I know this was not a well-known trick and Lopez-Alt came up with it originally.