Authentic Dutch Apple Pie

My mother’s recipe

Ingredients

• 250 gram of white flour (the unhealthy stuff…)
• 125 gr of cold, unsalted, organic butter (the healthy stuff)
• 100 gram of browned, soft sugar (ditto in the un-health department)
• heaped teaspoon of cinnamon (times two)
• pinch your boyfriend, eh, I mean ‘of salt’
• one egg (no egg jokes!)
• 8 large to medium-sized apples

Put most of the stuff in a bowl (minus the apples and one teaspoon of cinnamon) and knead with hands until you get a smooth ball, takes about 10–15 minutes. Keep going…
Put ball in cling wrap (or plastic bag) in fridge to cool.

Make the filling

Peel the apples and slice them in cubes, like so:

Pre-cook the apples with the another heaped teaspoon of cinnamon. When they are half cooked, take them off the heat and let them cool.

Dough

After 2 hours roll out dough with a rolling pin, using flour to prevent sticking. Line a round cake tin (see above) with a layer of dough, one centimeter thick (0.393701 inch). Leave enough dough to put on top of apples later on.

Blind bake

To make a perfect pastry, blind-bake the base of the cake first. Cover the base with baking paper and fill it with raw beans so the edges don’t collapse, Put in oven for 25 / 30 minutes at 180 C.
Watch it, the base should not get dark brown, light brown is fine.
After 30 minutes, take out of oven, lift the beans out and save them for next time and let the base cool.

Fill

Put the apple filling in the base of the cake and cover the cake with strips of dough. (see above)
Cook the cake for 1.5 hours at 140/ 160 C. Time depends on how moist the filling is. The dough at the top will get crunchy while due to the moisture content of the filling, the base will only cook. Watch the top strips of dough, they should not get too dark (light brown only)
Serve with whipped cream. (important addition that enhances the experience!)

Measure the silence

When they eat it, measure your success by listening to the silence… the longer they are silent and/or make appreciative noises, the more successful you have been. (#measurethesilence)