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Dutch Apple Pie
Pare, core, and slice three pounds of apples, and wash and dry half a pound of currants; lay part of the apples in a dish, and strew over them the currants, some sugar, and the grated rind of a lemon. Take off the white part of the lemon, cut the pulp into thin slices, and spread them on the currants, add sugar and plenty of candied orange-and citron-peel sliced, and fill up with the remainder of the apples. Cover with a light paste and bake in a rather quick oven for an hour or more. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for seven or eight persons.
A deep, single-crust fruit pie of the old English type — no cream, no cinnamon streusel, and no relation to the modern American "Dutch apple" with its crumb top. A few of the quantities and terms need translating.
- Oven temperatureA "rather quick oven" is about 400–425F. Start there to set the pastry, then drop to 350F for the remainder of the hour so the apples cook through without the crust darkening.
- The applesThree pounds pared and cored comes down to roughly 2 to 2.25 lb of usable fruit, enough for a deep pie dish of about 2 to 2.5 quarts. Use a cooking apple that holds some shape — Bramley collapses to sauce, which is fine if that is what you want but changes the dish.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. Half a pound is 1.5 cups and is a generous hand; the "wash and dry" step matters less with modern packaged fruit, though a quick rinse and pat dry still plumps them.
- Candied peelCandied orange and citron peel was a common store-cupboard item in reasonably provisioned Victorian kitchens. Buy whole candied peel in pieces and slice it yourself if you can — much of the pre-diced supermarket kind is soft and heavily syrup-laden, and is more likely to dissolve into the juice.
- The lemonGrate the zest first, then cut away the bitter white pith entirely before slicing the flesh, as the recipe directs. The sliced lemon pulp is a distinctive feature here, supplying acid against three pounds of sweetened apple.
- SugarNo quantity is given. Reckon on 4 to 6 oz (roughly ½ to ¾ cup and a little more) total for this volume of fruit, less if the apples are sweet, and remember the currants and peel bring their own sugar.
- "A light paste"A short crust or a rough puff, laid over the filled dish only — this is a covered pie, not a lined tart. Cut a vent, and put a pie funnel or an inverted eggcup in the centre to keep the lid off the collapsing fruit.
- YieldSeven or eight portions, as stated, and that is plausible for a deep dish. Serve warm with cream or a plain custard rather than ice cream; the filling is already sweet and strongly flavoured with the peel.
"Dutch" in nineteenth-century English cookery books is a loose label whose meaning is unsettled, and it should not be read as a claim of Netherlandish origin. What this pie really shows is the older English tradition of the fruit pie built out of the dry store cupboard: currants, candied citron and orange peel, and lemon were the same materials that went into mincemeat and plum pudding, and they were used to stretch and season a bulk of cheap orchard apples. The recipe gives a probable cost of 1s. 6d. for seven or eight servings, which places it as an economical family sweet rather than a company dish, the candied peel and citron being the one comparatively costly element.