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This apple pastry is part cake, part pie. It’s a delicious, refreshingly different apple recipe that will hit your autumnal apple craving spot in an amazing and awesome way.

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Makes 16 generous squares or 20 moderate-yet-perfectly-satisfying rectangles 

This is one of miLam’s favorite apple desserts. It’s a thick layer of pie filling between two very thin layers of cake. The filling is mega applicious and there’s lots of it. The pastry’s rich and tender: part cake, part vanilla cookie, part pie crust. The glaze complements the tangy apples. One of the advantages this pastry has over pie, is that you have complete control of the filling. No guesswork. No worrying if it will be runny or under-cooked. A second advantage: no bending over backwards to keep the crust from overly browning.

Filling Ingredients:

An Apple Dessert Recipe Perfect for A Potluck

5½ lbs baking apples^[1]
¼ cup water, apple juice, or (hard) cider
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp clove
½ cup sugar (plus more, optionally)
2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs cornstarch (plus more, optionally)
7 Tbs butter

Cake Ingredients:

One of Our Favorite Granny Smith Apple Recipes

Directions:

1. Peel and core the apples, and cut them into medium-sized (<1”) chunks.^[2] Place them into a thick-bottomed pot. 2. Add water, cinnamon, sugar, vanilla, cornstarch, and butter. Cook over medium heat until the apples are tender, but not falling apart, about 35-40 minutes,^[3] turning them periodically with a large rubber spatula. Taste about ¾ of the way in, to make sure you’ve used enough sugar; if the apples are especially tart, you may need more. If you opened a hard cider for the sake of this recipe, down that thing while the apples cook. Once the apples are just about done, if the filling isn’t thick enough,^[4] add about 1 Tbs more cornstarch and stir for a minute.

3. Butter a 9×13 baking pan and line the bottom with parchment. Butter the parchment. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. 4. Cream the butter and sugar with the paddle attachment, until light and fluffy. Add baking powder, eggs, milk, vanilla, and 1½-cups of flour, and combine thoroughly. Begin adding flour by the ¼-cupful, mixing until fully incorporated, until the ingredients turn into a consistency that is in between a batter and a dough. It will be quite soft, very sticky, and, with floured hands, you’ll just barely be able to work it like a dough. Add as little flour as possible to make this happen. 5. Divide the dough in half, and place one of the halves in the freezer. Using well floured hands, press the other half of the dough into the prepared pan. Prick it all over with a fork. Place it in the oven for 10 minutes, or until the top is set but not browned. 6. Meanwhile, remove the dough from the freezer and roll it out on a heavily floured Silpat,^[5] into a rectangle large enough to cover the apples. Return it to the freezer. 7. Once the bottom crust comes out of the oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes. 8. Then, pour the apple mixture into the pan and spread it evenly. Retrieve the top crust from the freezer, place it over the apples, and bake for 30-35 minutes. 9. Cool, then top the apple pastry with a white glaze, or just before serving, dust with powdered sugar. Here are a few ways to make glaze: use butter, don’t use butter, or on second thought, why not use butter? Then, store the pastry in the refrigerator. Don’t cut into it until 12 hours after it’s been out of the oven. Yes, I said 12 hours. Maybe you think you’ll follow that direction, any maybe you already know that there’s no way you’re going to. As the pastry sits, the cake absorbs apple juices and compresses into something like a cross between cake and pie crust. Until that happens, the cake will seem more like a very buttery biscuit – which is not a bad thing per se – but it will compete with the apple filling rather than complement it. Once it’s passed the 12 hour mark – ahhhhh. Fantastic. And it just gets better and better as time goes on. But time won’t go on for long before you scarf the entire pastry down. Wait for it! You’ll be glad you did. Once it’s ready, you can eat it straight from the fridge, or at room temperature.

Apple Pastry Recipe

This type of pastry is a favorite among Poles, who call it “Szarlotka.” However, a typical Polish version would have more cake: three roughly equal layers, cake-apple-cake, and it typically isn’t glazed. Szarlotka translates as “Charlotte,” and is a close relative of the ice-box cake. In making the pastry as I’ve laid it out, you are essentially making a homemade cakey cookie, and layering it with apple filling. Like an ice-box cake, the filling needs to seep into and meld with the cake. That’s why you need the 12-hour wait.

Notes:

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