Tender apples baked in rich homemade toffee sauce, surrounded by a golden flaky crust, and crowned with a mountain of Biscoff streusel topping!
Who doesn’t LOVE a warm slice of apple pie? It’s a quintessential American dessert that’s always served at the holidays. Although there’s nothing like a warm slice of apple pie (preferably A la mode), there’s something to be said about apple crisp and that golden buttery streusel topping.
This brings me to the Dutch Apple Pie. Not only does it have a flaky crust and tender apple filling, but it also has that addictively crisp streusel topping. You get the best of both worlds! So this week I decided it was time to try my hand at Dutch Apple Pie…but with a little twist.
A TOFFEE twist, that is!
This pie is absolutely BRIMMING with deliciousness! With perfectly cooked apple filling laced with luscious toffee sauce, a mountain of streusel topping, and a golden flaky crust, you’ll be licking every last crumb off your plate. Add an extra drizzle of rich toffee sauce and a creamy scoop of vanilla ice cream, and you’ve entered pure bliss euphoria.
Why This Dutch Apple Pie is the BEST
Perfect Apple Filling: You won’t find any hard undercooked apples or mushy applesauce in this pie. Thanks to this recipe’s pre-cooking method, you get perfect tender apple filling every time!
Heaps of Streusel Topping: This pie comes with absolutely no shortage of streusel. It’s piled high and baked until crisp and golden. You’ll find it nearly impossible not to snag a few crispy hunks off the pie after it’s done baking.
Extra Flaky Crust: Thanks to a few tips and tricks (which I’ll expand on later), this pie has a perfectly golden flaky crust. You won’t have to worry about the dreaded soggy bottom if you follow my simple steps.
HOMEMADE Toffee Sauce: Need I say more? This toffee sauce takes your average Dutch Apple Pie and knocks it clear out of the park! It’s smooth, silky, rich, and buttery, and elevates this pie to a whole new level.
How many apples do I need, and what kind?
It depends on the size of the apples, but I ended up using 9 medium-sized apples. It’s important to note that you should have 3 pounds of apples AFTER they’ve been peeled, cored, and sliced. It might look like a lot of apples, but it’ll cook down A LOT.
As for what kind of apples work best, I’d recommend Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Gala, Fuji, Braeburn, or Golden Delicious. I ended up using Honeycrisp, Gala, and Mutsu, which are also known as Crispin. Combining a mixture of tart and sweet apples creates the perfect balance of flavor and sweetness.
How to Prevent Undercooked Filling
While researching, I found that a common problem with Dutch Apple Pies is that the filling ends up undercooked. To remedy this, I decided to pre-cook the filling before pouring it into the crust and baking it in the oven. Not only does this cook off some of the juices from the apples, but it also gives you the ability to cook the apples to your desired consistency. Once they’ve reached the desired softness/tenderness, take them off the heat. The apples won’t continue to cook in the oven since their natural pectin becomes heat-stable during the pre-cooking process. This allows the apples to keep their shape and prevents them from becoming mushy during further cooking.
How to Prevent Runny Filling
Although it might seem counterintuitive or wasteful, after you’ve cooked the apple filling, you’re going to pour it into a colander to drain out the extra liquid. Don’t worry because we’re going to replace that extra liquid with something WAY better–toffee sauce! More specifically, HOMEMADE toffee sauce. I ended up draining about one cup of extra liquid from the apple filling. Then I poured half of the apple filling into the pie crust and drizzled 1/3 cup of the toffee sauce over the filling. I repeated these steps once more with the rest of the apple filling and another 1/3 cup of toffee sauce.
Key Ingredients for the BEST Streusel Topping
Traditional streusel ingredients include flour, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. I, on the other hand, like to spruce my streusel up a bit more by adding whole old-fashioned oats as well as chopped pecans and Biscoff cookie crumbs. The oats provide a nice chew to the streusel and the pecans give it great crunch factor. The Biscoff cookie crumbs not only add extra toffee-like flavor, but they also add a delicate crispness to the streusel. If you don’t have Biscoff cookies, you can easily substitute them with graham cracker crumbs or more oats.
How to Bake a Flaky Crust
This recipe involves blind-baking the crust before filling it and baking it in the oven. Blind-baking keeps the crust crisper and flakier, while also preventing it from getting soggy. During the blind-baking process, the fat melts and creates steam, forming those nice flaky layers. It also sets the crust’s structure and creates a kind of seal between the filling and the crust. Moreover, pre-cooking the apple filling reduces the amount of liquid in the filling, thus preventing a soggy crust.
Dutch Toffee Apple Pie
Ingredients
Crust:
- 3 Tablespoons water
- 1 Tablespoon sour cream
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 Tablespoons shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
Streusel Topping:
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup chopped pecans
- ⅓ cup old-fashioned whole oats
- ½ cup Biscoff cookie crumbs*
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup salted butter, softened and sliced
Toffee Sauce:
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 5 Tablespoons salted butter
- ⅔ cup heavy cream
Apple Filling:
- 3 lbs Peeled, cored, and thinly-sliced apples**
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- ⅔ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- ⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Make the Crust:
- In a small bowl, combine the water and sour cream; set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir the flour, sugar and salt together. Scatter the shortening over the flour, then use a cheese grater to grate the butter on top. Using a fork or a pastry blender, cut the mixture together until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the sour cream mixture and use a stiff rubber spatula to stir and press the dough together until it forms one big mound. If dough is still too dry and doesn’t hold together, add another tablespoon of water.
- Turn the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and flatten into a 5-inch disk. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least one hour.
- Once chilled, roll the dough out into a 12-inch circle and fit into a greased 9-inch pie plate. Trim, fold, and crimp the edge of the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 15 minutes until chilled and firm.
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. To blind-bake, I like to press a sheet of aluminum foil into the pie pan since it gets into the crevices better than parchment paper. I then pour pie weights (or dried beans or rice) on top of the foil. Place pie plate onto a baking sheet and bake until the edges of the crust are starting to brown, about 15-16 minutes. Remove pie from the oven and carefully lift the aluminum foil (with the dried beans or rice) out of the pie. Return the pie crust to the oven and bake until the bottom crust is golden brown, about 10-15 minutes longer. Remove and cool completely.
Make the Streusel Topping:
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, pecans, oats, cookie crumbs, and cinnamon. Using a fork or pastry cutter, cut the softened butter into the dry ingredients. Once halfway incorporated, use your hands to squeeze the ingredients together, until a moist crumb forms; set aside.
Make the Toffee Sauce:
- In a medium saucepan, stir the brown sugar, honey, and butter over medium-high heat until mixture begins to boil and foam. Let the mixture bubble for 2-3 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the cream. Increase heat to medium and cook for another 2-3 minutes or until the sauce is smooth and glossy. Remove from heat and cool. Sauce will thicken as it cools.
Make the Apple Filling:
- In a large skillet pan, toss the apple slices with the lemon juice; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar, flour, spices, and salt together. Add the sugar mixture to the apples and toss to coat.
- Place skillet on stove over medium heat and cover with a lid. Cook apples for 15-20 minutes, stirring every 3 minutes or so, replacing the lid between each stir. Once apples are fork tender, remove from heat and immediately pour into a colander set in a bowl. Allow apples to drain for 15 minutes. Discard juices.
To Assemble:
- Scoop half of the apple filling into the baked crust, spreading evenly. Drizzle 1/3 cup of the toffee sauce on top. Scoop the rest of the apple filling evenly on top, and drizzle with 1/3 cup more of the toffee sauce. Sprinkle the crisp topping evenly over the pie filling.
- Bake at 425ºF for 15-20 minutes, or until topping is golden brown. Cool pie on a wire rack until it reaches room temperature. This should take 3-4 hours. Please do NOT rush the cooling process.
- Once the pie has cooled completely, slice and serve! Drizzle more toffee sauce on top and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream.