Baking Challenge January

My husband and his friends at work ate this yesterday, with some whipped cream, grated dark chocolate and Rum...

This month we have tried a Dutch recipe - suggested and tried by Kaveri of Palakad Chamyal.

Traditional Dutch Apple Pie (Appletaart)

Recipe Source: The Dutch Table (http://www.thedutchtable.com/2010/01/appeltaart-dutch-apple-pie.html)

For the crust/base

All Purpose Flour – 2 cups

Butter – 175 g

Sugar – ¾ cup

Milk – 4 tbsp, cold

For the filling

Tart Apples (Elstar/Babern/Granny Smith) – 2 big

Lemon Juice – 1 tbsp

Raisins soaked in apple juice (next time I will try soaling them in Rum :)) – 1 cup

Speculass Spices (recipe further down) – 1 tbsp

Cream of Wheat/Semolina/Rava – 2 tbsp

Sugar – ¼ cup (See notes)

White Bread – 2 slices

How-to-do-it

1.       Mix the flour with the sugar, salt and cut in the butter. Rub gently and quickly with your hands. It is ok to have pea sized pellets.

2.       Add the cold milk 1 tbsp at a time and knead into a dough.

3.       Do not work too much with hands. Do the kneading quickly.

4.       Refrigerate the dough at least for half an hour or until the dough is firm and pliable.

5.       Get the filling ready,

6.       Peel and core the apples.

7.       Cut the apples and slice them. Don’t make them small. They have to be big slices.

8.       Toss them with the rest of the ingredients, except the bread and set aside.

9.       Grease and dust a springfoam pan. (I used an 8 inch pan)

10.   Take the dough out of the refrigerator, keep aside 1/5th of the dough.

11.   Press the remaining dough onto the base and ¾ the height of the sides of the springform pan.

12.   Cut the edges of the bread and cut them into small cubes. Place these bread cubes all over the base.

13.   Now add in the apple raisin mixture, press lightly to fit in.

14.   Now, to do the lattice,

15.   Take out ¼ th of the dough that has been kept aside,

16.   On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough and cut into strips.

17.   Place 3 strips from one end to the other, and the remaining 3 strips crossing over the previously laid strips.

18.   With the last bit of dough, roll into a rope like and place around the circumference of the pie.

19.   Brush the top with milk and sprinkle some sugar.

20.   Bake at 350 F (175°C) for 75 minutes.

Notes:

I have skipped the eggs in the recipe. Feel free to follow the original recipe with eggs.

I felt that the apples I used were too tart, and the sweetness of ¼ cup was slightly on the lesser side. Taste the filling and feel free to increase or decrease the sugar depending on the tartness of apples.

The speculaas spice mix:

15 grams  cinnamon

5 grams  cloves

5 grams nutmeg

2 grams white pepper

2 grams coriander seed

2 grams aniseed