Last week I had the pleasure of going to yet another great party. One of my Embassy clients was having a dinner party and the menu selected was really delicious. 

The main event was a 5 course menu with 5 flights of complementary wines. I served this menu for friends the week before (we always have to do a test run on the menu) and enjoyed some fabulous wines with it too.

Upbeet Sushi Roll

served ‘inside out’ from Sushi American Style by Tracy Griffith

thickened with an unlikely alliance of silken tofu

Green Beans Provençal

delicious with red onions, currants and warm wine vinaigrette

from The Vegan Society

sorry! no picture

Dutch Apple Pie

from a mix of my Mom’s recipe, German streusel and Dutch ingredients

Which brings me around to the topic of this blog - Dutch Apple Pie!!

What exactly makes a pie Dutch? In Holland it refers to the ingredients like raisins, apples, cinnamon and lemon juice.  For this recipe I omitted the raisins but had all of the other components. Instead of topping my “traditional” Dutch apple pie with a rolled lattice topped dough I made a German streusel topping. Streusel in German means ‘something sprinkled or strewn’.  My streusel topping was sprinkled and strewn all over the top of my Mom’s Canadian apple pie recipe. The result was outstanding with a nice sweet crunch atop the juicy baked apples with brown sugar, lemon and cinnamon. 

The recipe below is a version from Sweet Vegan by Emily Mainquist.

Dutch Apple Pie

Ingredients for crust:

75 g vegan margarine

165 g 405 flour (in Germany this is an all-purpose flour)

¼ tsp salt

4 T cold water

Ingredients for Apple Filling:

6 large local apples preferably tart

35 g 405 flour

130 g light brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Ingredients for Crumb Topping:

130 g 405 flour

100 g light brown sugar

70 g vegan margarine

Preheat oven to 220℃. 

Make the crust either in your mixer or by hand. Beat the margarine until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the flour + salt. While the motor is running add the cold water 1T at a time until the dough starts to form. If you over mix the dough will become tough.  On a lightly floured surface roll the dough until 5mm thick, place in the pie pan or tart dish.  Trim the edges, crimp for a nice presentation (see above photo). Set aside.

For the filling, peel core and slice the apples. In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon then toss with apples. Set aside.

For the topping, combine the flour and sugar in your kitchen machine. Add the vegan margarine 1 T at at time until the crumb topping resembles very coarse sand.

Assembly:

Spoon the apple filling into the pie crust. Make sure you don’t add any of the liquid from the pie filling bowl or your pie will be soggy. Top with the crumb topping. Place the pie on a baking sheet for easy cleaning (I line mine with baking paper). Cover the pie with foil and bake for 35 minutes. turn down the heat to 180℃, remove the foil and bake for another 10 minutes to brown the topping and crust. Let it cool for one hour before cutting. 

This recipe doubled easily. I baked a double recipe in my large Polish pottery pie plate that has 20 generous portions (not shown). If doubling then you need to increase the cooking time. I baked a double pie for 30 minutes longer: 10 minutes extra time with foil + 20 minutes longer after it was removed). You’ll have to keep checking the pie if you double it to avoid burning, or under cooking it.  You should be able to see the apples bubbling happily when it’s removed from the oven.  I added some stars cut from the extra pastry to the top of the pie before baking.

Enjoy!!

from my Berlin kitchen to yours

Jill