Apple Streusel Pie

The glut of apples in autumn time is very much welcome to my son, J1, who adores apples in baked products. May it be pies, pastry, bread, or cakes. For sometime, the two of us have been trying out different versions of classic apple pies (of course with me slaving away while he does the tasting) to see which ones will have the honor of staying in our family recipe list.

One of them is this pie with a streusel topping. 'Streusel' according to the Joy of Baking glossary, is a type of cake or pastry topping, German in origin, and has a base of flour, butter, and sugar in which spices, nuts, and other ingredients are added. I adapted this from my beloved battered Let's Cook with Nora by Nora Daza.

I remember well the second time I baked this, I was so distracted with the things going on in the kitchen that I forgot to add flour to the sugar mixture used to toss the apples with. It turned out like an apple pie soup! Crusts at top and bottom were fine but the middle was so wet I was ladling it out when serving. :LOL: Then another time, I forgot to put milk with the topping ingredients. Whatever it was, seems this pie always get shortchanged. ;) So this time I banished all the kids from the kitchen and had a run down of the ingredients to make sure everything is in there. The only thing that I think I have to tweak is the cooking time since even after 40 minutes some of the apple pieces were not fully cooked (not that we mind ...) hence I put in 55 minutes in the recipe below.

About our taste preference, we don't like our apple pies too tart and not too sweet as well with just a tad bit of saltiness in it. This one has that kinda savoury-sweet tang in the topping courtesy of the cheese. The sugar in the filling was reduced a lot and the bottom crust is oh so flaky and buttery. Nice.


Apple Streusel Pie

*Crust:
85 g  [1/3 cup] butter - chilled
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp fine salt
2-3 Tbsp cold water

* Filling:
4 cups roughly chopped baking apples (Golden Delicious, Jonagold, Cox, etc.) - cored and peeled first
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbsp flour

*Topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup golden granulated sugar
2 Tbsp butter
1 cup coarsely grated cheese
2 Tbsp milk

• Preheat oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
• For the crust:
  1. Put the flour and butter in a bowl.
  2. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter or two butter knives until mixture is into a crumbly state.
  3. Sprinkle enough water and toss until you can gather the dough into a ball. Press, turn and gently knead to just about bring it together until the doughball is smooth and the texture uniform. Caution: do not over knead of it will become inelastic and stiff.
  4. Wrap or put in a plastic bag and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  5. On a clean, floured surface or between greaseproof paper and cling film, roll flat evenly with a rolling pin into a circle shape with a diameter of about 11 inches.
  6. Turn out dough on a 9-inch pie plate. Trim edge until you have about 1 inch overhanging all around.
  7. Tuck the overhang under and flute the sides decoratively with a fork or with fingers.
  8. Prick crust all over with fork.
• For the filling:
  1. Combine all ingredients except the apple in a container and mix well.
  2. Toss the chopped apple in the spice mixture.
  3. Put and arrange into the unbaked pie crust.
• For the topping:
  1. Combine sugar and flour in a bowl.
  2. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two butter knives until crumbly.
  3. Add in cheese and toss to combine.
  4. Sprinkle milk and mix well.
  5. Spread to cover top of apple mixture.
• Bake in oven for about 55 minutes. If the crust and topping is browning too much, coverly loosely with aluminum foil.
• Remove from oven and cool. Serve warm or cold.