Crustless Apple Pie (Swedish Apple Pie)

Crustless Apple Pie (Swedish Apple Pie) is made with a thick crispy, cake-like layer on top of thinly sliced apples coated in cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar and does not have any bottom crust at all. The topping is quite unique, yet easy to throw together, without requiring any special skills or techniques.

The cake-like topping is crispy at the very outer edge, but soft and cake-like underneath. It is perfect for topping with ice cream, which melts into the soft cakey topping and warm cinnamon apples underneath. This style of dessert can be made with all sorts of fruit like blueberries in my Swedish Blueberry Pie.

The topping is made with slices of frozen dough layered over the thinly sliced apples. Using frozen slices of dough leads to a crispier topping.

I love apple desserts. An apple pie with a scoop of high-quality vanilla bean ice cream is probably my all-time favorite. But I love these Apple Cinnamon Blondies which smell just like apple pie, but they take a lot less time to make.

This Swedish Apple Pie recipe is adapted from a recipe from a family friend. It always made it to the dinner table at my husband’s Thanksgiving growing up, and it’s a favorite of his to this day. We like to make it around the holidays, but I’ve tweaked the recipe just a bit, adjusting a few of the ingredients.

Great for New and Experienced Bakers

The technique and ingredients used in this recipe are quite simple. You do not need to have any special skills or pie-making experience to throw this together, making it a great option for new and experienced bakers.

Crustless Apple Pie: How to Choose Apples

The texture, sugar level, acidity, and water content of apples will impact the final result of your baked Crustless Apple Pie (or any baked apple dessert). Depending on the innate sugar and acidity of the apple, you will need to compensate with more or less added sugar in your pie. See the recommendations and notes below.

Apple Recommendations:

• Granny Smith: These are tart and acidic apples. They have a firm texture and hold up well while baking. They are also readily available all year long, making them an excellent choice for baking. However, because Granny Smith apples are so tart, err on the side of adding more rather than less sugar to balance the tartness. I find that Granny Smith apples that are a paler green are less tart, whereas the darker green apples can be quite tart.
• Honeycrisp: Sweeter apples that also maintain their firm crisp texture when baking. They may be more difficult to find outside of the apple-picking season, but when available, they are a great choice. Because Honeycrisp apples are quite sweet you can reduce the amount of added sugar that you include in your dessert.
• Jonamac: This is a local New England variety that is hard to find, but fantastic as an eating and baking apple. Jonamac apples are both sweet and tart, with a very crisp, crunchy flesh. Look for ones that are half green and half red. If they are all red, they will be softer and not as crisp.

For more recommendations on baking apples, see the guides available at Sally’s Baking Addiction, BonAppetit, and Epicurious.

Apples & Pie All Year Long

Ever wonder why apples can stay fresh all year long? After the fall harvest, apple growers store apples in Controlled Atmosphere rooms, enabling apples to be fresh and available all year long. See the Interview with Tim Dressel of Kettleborough Cider House, who I interviewed back in 2015 on apple storage.

“Long-term apple storage relies on what is called “Controlled Atmosphere” or “CA” storage. This entails sealing the apples in large, refrigerated, air-tight rooms and lowering the oxygen levels, effectively slowing the natural respiration of the picked fruit and thereby slowing the ripening process to a virtual stand-still.”

Ingredients for Crustless Swedish Apple Pie

Pie Topping: Below are the ingredients needed for the topping.

Pie Topping

• Butter: I use salted butter. Ensure that the butter is softened but not melted. You can microwave the butter for 1 minute at a time at 20% power to soften it.
• Granulated Sugar: The topping requires 1 cup of granulated sugar.
• All-Purpose Flour: Use unbleached all-purpose flour.
• Egg: 1 large egg.
• Vanilla Extract: To add vanilla flavor to the cake topping. If you do a lot of baking, consider buying a bottle of vanilla extract from Costco. It is much more cost-effective than buying tiny bottles at the grocery store. I go through about one 16oz bottle from Costco a year.
• Salt: To balance sweetness and bring out the other flavors.

Pie Filling: Pictured below are the ingredients needed to make the filling.

Pie Filling:

• Granny Smith Apples: See notes above regarding apple varieties.
• Granulated Sugar: Because Granny Smith apples are tart, the filling calls for a full cup of sugar.
• All-Purpose Flour: For absorbing excess liquid from the apples.
• Cinnamon: I highly recommend using high-quality cinnamon. It makes a big difference in the final result. I use Ceylon Cinnamon from Simply Organic. It is expensive but worth it. I use it a ton for making my Maple Pecan Granola, which we make 2-3x a month.
• Nutmeg: Nutmeg is a strong spice, you can adjust the amount based on taste preferences. This recipe calls for ½ tsp, but you can reduce it to ¼ tsp, increase it to 1 tsp, or eliminate it.
• Salt: To balance sweetness and bring out the other flavors.

How to Make Crustless Apple Pie

This recipe is great for beginners or experienced bakers. I have included step-by-step instructions and photos below.

For the Crust: Step 1. In a large bowl, add the softened butter and granulated sugar. Using a hand-held beater (or by hand), mix to combine.

Step 2. Add the egg and mix to combine.

Step 3. Add the flour, salt, and vanilla extract and combine.

Step 4.  Using plastic wrap, shape the dough into a log. Place in the freezer until hardened, 1-2 hours. Freezing the dough will make for a crispier crust.* See note below.

For the Filling: Step 5: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Add the sliced apples, granulated sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt to a large bowl. Stir to combine. Add the apples to a roughly 9-inch baking dish.

Assembling the Pie: Step 6: Take the dough out of the freezer and slice thin slices about ¼ inch thick. Layer the slices on top of the filling, overlapping in places. Add chopped walnuts on top if using (optional). Bake for 1 hour, checking on it periodically to make sure it doesn’t burn, and cover with aluminum foil if needed. Remove when the top is golden brown.

Step 7: Serve warm, adding the apple pie by the spoonful to each dish with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top (optional).

Variations:

• Almond Extract: If you like almond flavor, consider adding 1 teaspoon of almond extract to the topping dough.
• Walnuts: If you like nuts and would like a little extra crunch add ½ cup almonds on top of the pie dough topping.
• Lemon Juice: If your apples are very sweet (see note on apple varieties above), reduce the amount of granulated sugar to ⅔-¾ of a cup and add ½ tablespoon lemon juice to balance the sweetness.

Why Freeze the Dough:

The recipe calls for freezing the pie dough, adding it on top of the pie filling, and putting it straight into the oven. There are a few reasons for this.

1. Freezing cools down the butter, causing the topping to spread less when baked.
2. It intensifies the flavor as the dry ingredients (flour and sugar) absorb moisture from the wet ingredients, creating a drier dough. Since the dough is less wet (think less watered down), the flavors become more concentrated. Additionally, the flour starts to break down into its component parts, including sugar, which makes the end result taste sweeter.
3. Texture: As the dry ingredients absorb the wet ingredients the dough becomes drier, resulting in a crispier exterior when baked.

How to Serve Crustless Apple Pie

Allow to cool slightly, but serve while still warm. Because this dessert does not have a bottom crust, use a large serving spoon to scoop portions into bowls. Then top with ice cream, which will melt into the still-warm pie.

Tips and Tricks

• Baking Dish: If you do not have a pie dish, use a square or rectangular baker that is roughly the same size as a 9-inch pie dish. The shape of the dish does not matter, as you will scoop portions with a large serving spoon, rather than cutting slices like with a pie.

• Filling the Dish: The apples should fill ¾ of the baking dish. If you have a deeper dish, you could always add more apples and adjust the sugar and spices as needed.

• Make Ahead: Make the topping the night before (completely optional). The topping is super quick to throw together and can be tossed in the freezer overnight. Then pull the frozen dough out right when you are done peeling, slicing, and coating the apples in sugar and spices. This is a better option than making the whole pie ahead of time and reheating. It's better fresh.

• If Making Same Day: If making the topping the day of, account for 1-2 hours for the dough to be in the freezer prior to slicing and baking.

• Slicing the Apples: Slice the apples to the same thickness. Keeping the slices the same thickness will result in the apples cooking at the same rate. If you have some apple slices that are thicker than others, the thicker slices will be undercooked compared with the thinner slices.

• Frozen Dough: Using a frozen dough topping is quite a bit easier than making a pie crust from scratch.

Crustless Apple Pie FAQs:

If you're looking for other pie recipes, you may love these:

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