Gluten-Free Dutch Apple Pie – the best comfort food!
Being the national sweet pastry of the Netherlands, this Dutch apple pie was requested by my Dutch husband as his birthday cake recently, which conveniently falls during apple season.
Dutch apple pie has a thick cake-like pastry as a base and as a lattice over densely packed spiced apples and raisins which are thinly sliced and stacked at least 5cm high. This produces a higher-than-normal apple pie with more filling than a typical American apple pie.
Making the pastry gluten-free is surprisingly easy. The dough is very manageable and presses together well when assembling in the baking tin. I highly recommend using a springform round baking tin for this pie. Once the collar is removed, this will make it easier to serve the pie intact.
Slicing the apples ½ cm thick is key to cooking the apple to the perfect texture. It is neither mushy nor undercooked. Just perfect!
The apples can be sliced and marinated in the lemon juice mixture ahead of time and stored in the fridge overnight before assembling the pie.
Gluten-Free Dutch Apple Pie
Fill your home with the scent of apple pie and enjoy this comforting dessert any time of the year.Dutch apple pie has a thick cake-like pastry as a base and as a lattice over densely packed spiced apples and raisins which are thinly sliced and stacked at least 5cm high.
Equipment
- 23 cm diameter round springform baking tin
- Food processor (optional)
Ingredients
GLUTEN-FREE PIE PASTRY
- 360 g store-bought or homemade gluten-free plain flour
- 1¼ tbsp gluten-free baking powder
- 1½ tsp xanthan gum ((leave out if your store-bought flour already has xanthan gum)
- 1 tsp salt
- 180 g butter, at room temperature, cubed
- 180 g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- ½ tsp lemon peel, grated
- 3 tbsp ice-cold water
DUTCH APPLE PIE FILLING
- 6 Granny Smith, Johnathon or Braeburn apples, peeled & cored
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 3 tsp cinnamon powder
- 4 tbsp dark brown sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 80 g raisins
- 2 tbsp store-bought or homemade gluten-free breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp ground aniseed
GLAZE
- 2 tbsp apricot jam
- 1 tbsp white rum or water
TO SERVE WITH
- freshly, whipped cream
- vanilla ice cream (optional)
Instructions
GLUTEN-FREE PIE PASTRY
- In a food processor or by hand, mix the flour, baking powder, xanthan gum and salt together.
- Add the butter and sugar. Process or rub in using your fingers until the mixture appears like coarse breadcrumbs.
- Add the egg and lemon peel. Mix well and slowly add the ice-cold water until the dough comes together.
- Place the dough on a sheet of baking paper and shape the dough into a log. Cut a third of the dough away and put it to one side. This will be used for the lattice covering of the pie.
- With the larger piece of dough, flatten the dough into a disc using your hands. Cover with another sheet of baking paper or plastic wrap and begin to roll out the dough to 1 cm in thickness and into a circle large enough to fit the baking tin. This may seem thin, but the dough expands while baking.
- Grease the springform tin lightly.
- Lift the baking sheet and flip over the dough onto the baking tin. Some of the pastry may crack or tear, but this can easily be repaired by pressing and moulding the pastry in the tin.
- Tidy up the edges of the pastry, making sure it runs evenly around the tin with at least 1 cm thickness and reaches 5 cm in height.
- Place the baking tin in the fridge while the apple filling is prepared.
DUTCH APPLE PIE FILLING
- In a large bowl, mix the lemon juice, cinnamon powder, sugar and salt together.
- Slice the peeled and cored apples thinly. Slicing them thinly is important. Aim for ½ cm slices.
- Add the apple slices to the lemon juice mixture. Gently mix the apples with the mixture taking care not to break or crush the slices.
Assembling the Dutch Apple Pie
- Sprinkle the breadcrumbs and ground aniseed on the bottom of the pastry-lined baking tin. This protects the pastry from becoming soggy from the moist apple mixture and adds more flavour to the apples.
- Arrange the apple slices in an overlapping pattern in the baking tin, sprinkling the lemon juice mixture and raisins between each apple layer. Keep stacking the apple slices and lemon mixture until you reach the top of the baking tin. This method of filling the pie is important to avoid any air bubbles from forming between the apple pieces, plus making maximum use of the number of apples used in this apple pie.
- With the remaining dough, roll it out to 1 cm thick and cut out several strips.
- Arrange the pastry strips over the top of the pie in a lattice pattern. The pie can be chilled until you are ready to bake or baked immediately once the oven has reached the required temperature.
BAKING
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F.
- Bake for 40 minutes on the middle shelf.
GLAZING
- In the smallest pan available, heat the apricot jam and rum together and allow it to reduce slightly to a thick glaze.
- Brush the pie pastry top with the warm glaze.
SERVING
- Allow the pie to cool down before removing the springform tin collar.
- The pie slices better when it has cooled down. If you wish to eat the pie warm, each slice can be reheated in the microwave or a moderate oven. Otherwise, serving the pie at room temperature is equally delicious.
- Serve with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Notes
- Keeps for 4 days chilled
- Freezes well as slices in airtight containers
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Please mention @fun_without_gluten or tag #funwithoutgluten!
you may also like these Dutch recipes
Gluten-Free Bitterballen (Dutch Beef Croquettes)
Gluten-Free Oliebollen (Dutch Apple Doughnuts)
