The Inspiration 馃ェ
This is a slight merge between my Grammy’s Apple Pie recipe and the amazing 馃嚦馃嚤 Dutch Appeltart
you’ll find all over the Netherlands.
I’ve had it from Villa Zeezicht
in two visits 25 years apart - and their’s is amazing!
This author’s blog was captured by the WayBack Machine (where I work ;-)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180225053159/http://www.sweetamandine.com/2010/09/it-sneaks-up.html
and will be the main focus of this merged recipe.

[ dutch appeltart version ]
For the dough
- 4 cups flour
- 1 录 cups sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 sticks + 2 Tbsps. cold butter, cut into small cubes
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg white, lightly beaten, for the glaze
For the filling
- 3-4 pounds apples (8-10 medium apples); 1/2 Honeycrisp (sweet!); 1/2 Granny Smith (tart!)
- 1 Tbsp. cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp. nutmeg
- 1 陆 cups sugar
- entire small lemon
Dough - In the bowl of a large (14-cup) food processor:
- combine the flour, sugar, and salt
- pulse to blend
- ddd the cubed butter, and process for about ten seconds, until the dough looks like a coarse meal
- add the two eggs, and pulse to incorporate
- split the dough into two lumps, each onto a sheet of plastic wrap, wrap tightly, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours
Filling
While the dough is chilling (or, during the last half an hour of that time, anyway):
- butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan or pie form
- peel, core, and quarter the apples
- stir together the cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in a small bowl
- combine mix with apples
- squeeze entire lemon over filling
- toss/mix
- preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Bake!
- Press about 3/4 of the chilled dough into the bottom and up the sides of the prepared pan.
- The thickness of the dough along the sides should be about a quarter of an inch or, as the chef explained, the thickness of half of your index finger, sliced vertically, from knuckle to nail.
- Roll out the remaining dough for top crust (very thin is fine).
- Use flour on roll and/or waxed paper as needed to keep together and peel off
- Add apple filling
- Add crust and pinch edges together
- Use knife and slice a heart or leaf in the center to vent
- Glaze with egg white
- Bake at 350 for 90 minutes to 2 hours (observe darkness of crust), rotating half-way through
The Verdict
I wound up having some extra, so made a “cobbler” side dish. I added some aluminum foil to cover it, with vents, for the first hour. I also didn’t glaze the pie top (it was getting late) and it wound up fine.
It was Amazing - best pie I’ve ever made! 馃槏
So similar to the Dutch Appeltart craving I’ve had since my twenties and my first trip to Amsterdam. My twin and I were visiting my older brother who was spending a year in Amsterdam for his work. We spent one of my favorite weeks in Europe ever, a lazy deliciously warm and sunny summer week, having cafes, beers, and pie outside his canal-overlooking 3-story apartment, meeting his friends, enjoying the scene and people, and walking around the city. We topped that off with an amazing week visiting 馃嚝馃嚪 Paris and Versailles and Chateaux 馃彴 all over the Loire Valley.