A hefty Dutch Apple Crumb Pie piled high with sweet and crisp honeycrisp apples in a flaky buttery bottom crust and a decadent crumb topping heaped on top
When I was little a Dutch Apple Pie with a crumb topping was always one of my favorite desserts. Looking back this could have been because I would just eat the crumb topping, leaving the majority of the apples on my plate. A trait that seems to be passed down to my son who happily ate his whole slice of pie, except the apples which he left behind. Strangely enough he ate all the apples last time he was served apple crisp.
What Type of Apple to Use
I made this pie with honeycrisp apples, which had a different taste and texture than granny smith, which I usually use when making pie. I sliced the apples ever so slightly thicker which resulted in a pie with apples that were soft but still had a slight crisp to them. This pie is loaded with apples. So the apple to crumb/crust ratio is a little more in favor of the apples, rather than just eating a pie that is mostly crust and not a ton of filling.
Simple Pie Crust
I’ve made apple pie many many times. There are all sorts of ways that you can make an apple pie, or a pie crust perfect. You can use cold butter, diced into cubes to make the crust. You can freeze the crust prior to baking, or par bake the crust without the filling in the oven to prevent it from getting soggy. You can prebake the apples separately to prevent the pie from getting too watery from the juices of the apples.
All of these methods are great, and will improve the pie, but in my mind, it is only a marginal improvement. This pie crust is excellent, without the par baking or super cold butter. And all these added tips and tricks, while helpful, take a lot of time and really, you’re only improving the pie from 95% to 99%. So while its nice to have the absolutely perfect pie, for the most part I prefer the 95% and the extra time.
Decorating the Pie
The same goes for decorating the pie with a fancy pie crust. Sure, an intricately woven lattice of maple leaf pie cutouts looks stunning, but to me I'll take the extra time over the picture perfect crust (which I learned after laboring over that picture perfect maple leaf pie cutout crust for a Friendsgiving party one year... lesson learned.).
Dutch Apple Crumb Pie
Ingredients
Bottom Crust
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 9 tbsp butter, softened
- 5-6 tbsp ice water
Filling
- 7-8 large honeycrisp apple
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup flour
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp salt
Crumb Topping
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ⅔ cup dark brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 12 tbsp softened butter
Egg Wash
- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp water
Instructions
- Bottom Crust: In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar, butter, and ice water. Wrap the pie crust in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes while making the filling and topping or overnight.
- Apple Filling: Peel and thinly slice the apples and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar, flour, vinegar, cinnamon, and salt. Coat the apples in the mixture. I usually let this sit for about 30 minutes so that the water starts to drain out of the apples. Then when assembling the pie you can scrape out the apples leaving the excess water behind.
- Crumb Topping: combine the flour, oats, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt, cinnamon and butter. Stir a few times with a spoon, then with your hands scrunch the ingredients together. The topping should come together with a crumb like consistency, some in larger clumps, some in small gravel-like clumps. Your hands will get messy.
- Preheat the oven to 375° F.
- Assembling the Pie: Roll out the pie dough for the bottom crust. Fit the dough to the pie dish such that you have a little bit of overhang. Layer the apple slices in the pie crust, so that you have a nice mound of apples in the middle that is higher than the crust. Add the crumb topping. You can use a fork to press slightly into the bottom crust around the edge to “decorate” the pie.Using an egg white and water, make an egg wash and brush over the outer edge of the bottom pie crust which sticks out beyond the crumb topping. Place the pie dish on a large baking sheet to prevent any overflow from dripping into the oven. Bake for 1 hour. Check the pie about half way through baking and if the crust has started to brown, cover with tin foil.
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