Mom's Dutch Apple Pie

Right before Laura posted that apple pies would be October's Have the Cake challenge, Todd and I had planned an apple-picking outing. We were headed to Stuart's Farm, a family fruit farm an hour or so outside of NYC with Dylan and Sofia, as well as Dylan's friend and his friend's dad and sister.

The farm has nine varieties of apples, three or four of which can be seen in this picture. I mixed and matched them for my pie, trying for a nice combo of sweetness and tartness.



I 've been eating and loving my mom's dutch apple pie my whole life, and despite getting into baking the last few years, I had never tried to make it on my own. This seemed like the perfect time! My mom sent me the recipe for the filling and the crust that both she and my Nana used whenever they were making one from scratch. I like the family history aspect of being at least the third generation to use a recipe. :)

Mom's found over the years that the pie gets too soggy if you don't let the apples sit in their sugary goodness for a while before loading into the crust. After sitting for a while, just enough of the apple juice comes out to save you from a soggy bottom. So I started there. Here's the first of my slied apples in the sugar mix.


I moved on to the crust next. I struggled a little bit rolling it out, as it crumbled a little around the edges. Mom warned me that the trick with this crust was to put all the ingredients in the freezer before using them. Apparently making them ice-cold saves the crumbling. I did that with everything but the milk. Our freezer was just too full for me to find a way to get it all in there. I think if I'd really followed Mom's directions, instead of just 3/4 of them, it would have been even easier. I had to work a little harder my way, but in the end the crust was rolled out well enough and tasted good to boot, so I'll take it.

So here is the final product, complete with hand-picked apples, homemade crust, and yummy sugary/buttery crumbles on top. We ate it that night with whipped cream and/or vanilla ice cream. Both Todd and Dylan went for seconds, so it's safe to say that it was a hit!