When apples are in season, I make the most of them by whipping up all kinds of recipes including apple crisp, baked apples, apple cobbler, charoset, snicker apple salad and this decadent and delicious pie. It’s the best apple pie I’ve ever tasted! Apple pie is a classic dessert recipe for good reason – that combination of sweet apples, cinnamon and pastry just can’t be beat. This Dutch apple pie is my all-time favorite pie. It also happens to be quite easy to make!
Dutch Apple Pie Ingredients
To make this recipe, you will need homemade apple pie filling, pie crust, butter, flour and brown sugar.
How Do You Make Dutch Apple Pie?
Start by preparing your apple pie filling by simmering sliced apples with two types of sugar, lemon juice, water, cornstarch, nutmeg, butter and cinnamon. After you’ve made the apple filling, it gets piled into a pie crust. You can make your own pie dough, or go for a frozen store bought crust like I did. Now you are ready to make the streusel topping that puts the “Dutch” in Dutch apple pie. The streusel is a simple blend of butter, brown sugar and flour. The butter gets cut into the flour and sugar to make the familiar crumb topping. The topping is sprinkled over the pie, then the pie goes into the oven to bake to golden brown perfection.
Tips For Dutch Apple Pie
This pie can be made up to 2 days before you plan to serve it. I recommend serving your pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. When you are preparing your streusel topping, make sure the butter is cold and right out of the refrigerator. The cold butter helps create the little crumbles of streusel that make a good, even topping. Bake your pie on a sheet pan or baking sheet, this will catch any drips or overflow from the pie. Let the pie cool a little before you serve it. The longer the pie cools, the more the pie filling juices and topping will set up and give you nice slices of pie.
Flavor Variations
This pie is sweet, tart and delicious, but you can add other fun flavors to customize the recipe to your tastes.
Fruit: You can swap in one cup of fruit such as peaches, pears, blueberries or raspberries for one cup of the apples. You can also use cherry pie filling instead of apples. Cran-Apple: Try adding 1/2 cup of fresh cranberries. If you add cranberries, make sure to increase the sugar in the filling by 1/4 cup. Nuts: Feel free to add 1/2 cup of chopped nuts to the topping such as candied walnuts, almonds or candied pecans. Caramel Apple: Add 1/2 cup caramel sauce to the filling for a caramel apple pie.
This apple pie has a sweet, crisp and crumbly topping that highlights the tart and wonderful flavor of the apples. This classic pie is one of my favorites that I love to make for holidays or any time I feel like a treat.
