The Traditional Dutch Apple Pie
For the first baking post on this site, it has to be appeltaart. This was the first recipe we made together and what lead to the creation of twotocook. Apples are in season so its a very fitting time for this lovely pie, especially with American Thanksgiving right around the corner! This pie would be great as your thanksgiving showstopper dessert. Serve as family and friends gather for a meal worth indulging. Let's get baking!
Tips and Tricks
For this recipe you need LOTS of apples. This pie/cake is made in a deep spring form pan and is filled to the top with apple slices. So get 8-9 apples peeled and sliced. While one of you deals with the apples, the other can make the mixture of sugar, cinnamon, custard powder and raisins. This combination screams autumn.
Stir in the apples and you will have a the perfect filling for a traditional appletaart. Normally with fruit pies, a lot of liquid gets released which can make the pie soggy at the bottom. This recipe is very special as there is a trick to solve for that! At the bottom of the pie, before you fill it with apples, create a layer of breadcrumbs. I know it sounds strange but trust me it works! The breadcrumbs absorb any liquid released from the apples to ensure the bottom of the pie remains firm and flaky. It also helps to make the pie stay together when you cut it in slices.
Now to the crust. You can make the dough either the night before or the day of. If you make it the same day, just ensure it has been refrigerated for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out. To make the dough, crumble cold butter and flour together to make a crumb mixture. Then add a few tablespoons of ice cold water until it comes together. Take 1/4 of the dough and roll into a flat disk. Take the remaining dough and make a flat disk as well. You should have two dough balls of different size that should be covered in plastic wrap and put in the fridge to chill. The reason for these two sized portions is to make it easier in assembly. The larger disk will be rolled out to cover the bottom and sides of the spring form pan. The smaller dough ball will be rolled out into a circle for the top. To make a lattice design, make strips of dough and alternate weaving them overtop the filled pie.
Once you have successfully created the lattice top, it should look something like the picture below. You should feel proud as its not easy to do! If dough crumbles as you put it together don't worry, just fix the dough where necessary. Before this pie can go in the oven, it needs a egg wash and sprinkle of sugar. This extra step adds something special to the top of the crust and makes sure the pie gets nicely golden and caramelized on top. This pie is very deep, so it cooks for 1 hour in the oven. Half way through, your house will smell of cinnamon and apples and make that last 30 minutes of waiting will feel like torture. In the last ten minutes, we were so impatient that we were waiting my the oven door watching it and counting down the seconds. But I can assure you, the wait was definitely worth it. For a traditional appeltaart, serve it with a nice side of whip cream. This pie is guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser and highlight of your Thanksgiving meal or coffee with friends. Cook together, enjoy together. That's the twotocook way!
The Recipe
How this works?
For those of you that are new to the twotocook family, our recipe structure deserves a little explanation. (For those of you who know the drill, skip on ahead :) The idea behind twotocook was to design recipes for a fun game-like experience. The idea is you and your partner decide who will be chef 1 and who will be chef 2. Following your selection you will be brought to your individual instructions. We will start with a split grocery list for those that maybe want to split the shopping and come together for the meal. Then you will find the recipe steps are written per person rather than chronologically. For example, one person can chop vegetables while the other is sautéing onion. The idea is for the recipes to be structured so working together in the kitchen is a seamless experience (and fun too!). We have game-ified cooking from start to finish (including clean up duty!).
If you guys try out this activity please let us know in the comments your experience doing it! We would love to hear from our twotocook community.
For those of you that prefer a pdf of the recipe with traditional structure of instructions click the link below:
Step 1: Pick your role!
Alright it's time to start. Between the two of you, decide who will be chef 1 and chef 2. It will be a surprise what tasks you will have to do and which lucky (or unlucky haha) winner will be on dishes tonight. Its all part of the fun!
Step 2: Grocery List
Step 3: Cooking
Thanks for making this recipe! We hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear your thoughts on our game-ified cooking adventure. Tag us on instagram and add in the comments your experiences making the dish.
Until next recipe!
- twotocook
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