Dutch Apple Pie

Dutch Apple Pie
I've always loved Dutch apple pie. And the best thing about it is that it's actually pretty easy, even if you don't do a lot of baking. Also, this recipe is super useful as a base for other sorts of desserts with only a few slight alterations. (See the last section on this page.)

Ingredients
​Filling: Topping:
 * 1 pie crust
 * 5-6 medium apples - peeled, cored, and sliced
 * 1 tablespoon lemon juice
 * 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
 * 1/2 cup granulated sugar
 * 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
 * 3 tablespoons flour
 * 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
 * 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
 * 1 teaspoon ground mace
 * 1 teaspoon ground allspice
 * 1 teaspoon ground cloves
 * 3/4 cup flour
 * 1/4 cup granulated sugar
 * 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
 * 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
 * 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
 * 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
 * 1/3 cup butter, room temperature

Directions
Preheat oven to 375˚ F. Core, peel, and slice apples to a medium thickness. In a large bowl, mix all the ingredients for the filling (sliced apples, lemon juice, vanilla, both sugars, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, mace, cloves). Pile everything into the crust.

In a medium bowl with a pastry blender or a fork, mix the topping ingredients (flour, both sugars, spices, and butter) until it resembles coarse crumbs. Gently cover the apples evenly with mixture.

Bake at 375˚ F for 50 minutes.

Tips and Hints
Pie crusts: I absolutely HATE making pie crust from scratch. It probably has to do with the fact that it's one of the few things I haven't been able to figure out how to bake properly. Plus, a ready-made pie crust is $1.50 in the baking aisle of the store. I like to use the graham cracker or granola crusts. But really, any (or no) crust will do.

Fruits: Fresh fruits are always great to use, but certainly not necessary. If you have canned fruit hanging out in your pantry, that works just as well. Make sure to drain it well, and you can probably cut down the amount of sugar you mix in with the fruit.

Spices: In almost all my baked goods, I use cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. You can use any or none of those if you want. (Maybe some ground ginger sounds yummy?) It'll be delicious if you only use cinnamon, or if you add the clove and mace to the mix as well. And, honestly, I usually don't measure how much spice I add. The measurements I added to this recipe are approximations. I probably use a lot more than I wrote down. (The same goes for vanilla and lemon juice.) Just try not to overdo it with the nutmeg or clove - they can taste really strong really quickly. When I say "pile everything into the crust," it's going to look like there's too much filling. There's (probably) not. The fruit should completely tower over the rim of the pie pan. It'll cook down a little bit, and it'll be a much better pie when it's done. Try to gently pat and redistribute the fruit mixture with your hands to fill in all those gaps made by the still-firm apples, and that will help if you're worried about stability.

Play with substitutions! For the pie that I made in the pictures, I decided to add the leftover blueberries we had in the fridge. I also used whole wheat flour. There are some things you can't substitute easily, but this recipe is fairly difficult to screw up. So have fun.

Using this recipe as a starting point for other desserts...
Apple Crumble


 * Same directions, except no pie crust and bake at 350˚ F in a 13x9 inch pan for ~30-40 minutes.

Berry/Cherry/Strawberry/Pineapple Pie or Crumble


 * You can probably just throw them in the pie and it'll come out okay, but these fruits don't have as much pectin as, say, apples. Pectin helps to keep the filling from becoming too runny. To make a fruit filling with these fruits (or combinations thereof), add 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch to the fruit mixture.

Crumbly Oat Topping


 * Do you like oats? Here's another topping variation you can do. Mix everything together until it forms coarse crumbs.


 * 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
 * 2/3 cup rolled oats
 * 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
 * 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
 * cinnamon, nutmeg, other spices
 * Increase or decrease ratios as needed (here, ~6 servings)


 * Put on top of fruit, beneath fruit, or both.

Delicious Fruit Combinations for Pies


 * In case you want a little inspiration, here's some good ones:


 * Berry Mix (i.e., blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry)
 * Peach Mango (I did this and added some passionfruit juice to the mix - it was amazing.)
 * Apricot Peach
 * Pear Apple
 * Apple Blueberry