Oh my, oh my pie, oh my apple pie. I am Dutch, so I guess this makes it a Dutch Apple Pie. Kidding aside, I wouldn’t know how to define a Dutch Apple Pie. I wonder, why some Apple Pies are called Dutch Apple Pies. Is there a something special about a Dutch apple pie, other than that it is made in the Netherlands or by a Dutch person? This Dutch Apple Pie according to my tradition is my go-to version.
I certainly cannot tell you much about the world’s apple pies, even though I ate a lot of apple pie in my life. When you Google Dutch Apple Pie, Wikipedia will reference an old book and the description is something like this. A crust and a top, all made of the same dough and contains cored, peeled and sliced apples, spices and cream.
My traditional apple pie is how many Dutch make an apple pie, of course each will taste slightly different, but essentially they are based on a similar recipe. Sure enough, many of you may disagree, yours is different, and I accept that wholeheartedly. But when you go to the old fashioned Dutch cafe, coffee shop (the ones where the actually serve coffee), the small restaurant, this is the apple pie they serve. It consists of dough made from sugar, flour and butter, and a filling containing sliced apples, raisins, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon.
Different apples, different spices, different ratios of the above will make for differently flavored pies. Oh and let’s not forget the temperature and time of baking will have an effect as well.
Most favorite Dutch addition to an piece of pie would be cream, whipped cream, as a rosette on top. But I prefer mine without any addition, other than a cup of coffee; I like my pie straight up.
A second addition would be with a scoop of ice cream. Here in the US, I often see apple pie with cheddar. I have to admit, the first time I heard that, I thought apple pie and cheese, but it makes all the sense of the world. We often suggest fresh fruit with a cheese platter, so why not the other way around.
I am going to find a nice apple pie-cheese combo one of these days and will tell you about it. May be we can call that a American Apple Pie.
More Dutch recipes are: Drie in the Pan, Stamppot and Pannekoek.
Dutch Apple Pie according to my tradition
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup raisins
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 8 ounces unsalted butter
- 4 Granny Smith apple
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon corn starch
- 4 graham crackers
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon apricot preserve
Instructions
- Add raisins to a cup of water and allow them to soak up the water.
- Whisk the egg.
- Combine, flour, baking powder, light brown sugar, salt and butter in a bowl. Use 2 knives and cut the butter into small pieces, like peas.
- Add half of the whisked egg and knead the mixture into a dough. Make sure everything is well mixed, form a ball and place it in the bowl in the refrigerator to cool.
- Grease a 9-inch form with butter and heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Peel, core and slice the apples thinly and place the slices in a bowl.
- Add lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, corn starch and raisins (not the water in which they soaked).
- Crumble the graham crackers into fine crumbs with a food processor or simply with a roller pin.
- Take the dough from the fridge. Lightly flower the surface and the rolling pin and roll the dough out until it is approx. 1/4 inch thick. Press the bottom of the pie form into the dough, to measure the circumference.
- Circle the impression 2 inches wider and place the 11-inch dough circie in the bottom of the pie form and just a little up on the sides. Cut pieces out of the remaining dough, and cover the rest of the sides of the pie form. There should still be about 1/3 of the dough left for the lattice; place this back in the fridge.
- Use a fork and prick holes in the bottom of the pie, then cover the bottom with the graham cracker crumbs.
- Add apple mixture into the pie, make sure that you add small quantities at a time to get a nicely filled pie, without ‘holes’ between the apple slices.
- Take remaining dough out of the fridge. Dust the surface with flour an roll out to 1/4 inch thick, using the rolling pin. Cut think strips from the dough and build your lattice, one strip at a time. Last but not least leave enough dough to put a strip on the outer perimeter of the pie, covering all the endings of the lattice to make a pretty top.
- Brush to top of the lattice with the remaining egg and place the pie in the oven for 2 hours. If pie becomes to dark cover top with aluminum foil.
- Warm apricot preserve, so it becomes thinner.
- Take pie out of the oven and brush with apricot preserve. Allow to cool entirely.
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