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The Not-Swedish, Apple, Not-Pie

Not Really Apple Pie
(Not Really) Swedish Apple Pie
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You can find several versions of a “Swedish Apple Pie” on the internet. Most of them look like fruit crumbles, rather than pie. This one has no bottom crust, but has a top crust that resembles a large cookie rather than pie crust. The result is a very easy, very delicious, but very ugly “pie.”

A caveat–I do not have Swedish ancestors, unless you count some stray Vikings who attacked and maybe bedded my Scottish or English distant ancestors. I do have a Swedish sister-in-law, and through her some Swedish acquaintances.

My Swedish friend tells me that she has not seen this “Swedish Apple Pie” in Sweden. They are more likely, she says, to make a dessert with oats that looks like a crumble.

Even though I constantly remind you of my Perfect Pie Crust recipe, sometimes there is a reason to use something different.

But sometimes taste wins out over authenticity, ya know? It took my husband and I about 36 hours to devour this delicious dessert–call it what you will.

In the recipe, I have included a link to the web source of the recipe that I adapted. There you can also find the recipe for traditional Swedish vanilla cream sauce, which really is Swedish, and might be served on this dessert if this were a Swedish dessert.

Not Really Apple Pie
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(Not) Swedish-Apple-(Not) Pie

An easy, delicious, ugly "pie" with a cookie crust.
Course Dessert
Keyword apple, fruit, pie
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 8 minutes
Servings -6 slices
Author Vera Marie Badertscher

Equipment

Ingredients

  • 4-6 Cups apples peeled, cored, and sliced 1/4" thick
  • 3 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp cardamon
  • 3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans Optional
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 3/4 cup unsalted butter melted
  • 1 egg

Instructions

  • Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a pie plate and set aside.
  • Mix the 3 Tablespoons of sugar and spices and pour over sliced apples. Stir well.
  • Spread apples in pie plate. Level them out.
  • Whisk together flour, the one cup of sugar, salt and spices.
  • Stir in melted butter. Add lightly beaten egg and stir until blended.
  • Pour the crust mixture over the apples and spread evenly, keeping 1/8-1/4 inch away from edge. Scatter nuts on top.
  • Place pie plate on cookie sheet to catch drips. Bake pie for one hour, or until crust is a golden brown, like a finished sugar cookie. (It took an extra 15 minutes in my oven.)
  • When done, cool on cooling rack. Serve warm or cold with whipped cream or ice cream if you wish.

Notes

While my Swedish friend says this is not really the way that the dessert is made in Sweden–where it is more of a crumble made with oatmeal– this dessert is delicious.  If you want to make it a bit more Swedish, you can use the traditional Swedish topping, Vanilla Cream Sauce.  You can find the recipe for Vanilla Sauce where I got the basic recipe for this “pie” at That’s Some Good Cooking.
I added nuts to the recipe because I thought it would up the flavor, and also perhaps improve the looks a bit. Unfortunately, I only have a picture of the original–without nuts.
Note for the Minority of Us Who Do Not Have Microwave Ovens
Microwaves are great for melting butter, but I do not have a microwave oven (and don’t miss it).  I have discovered an easy way to melt butter  if you have an oven that is under the range of your stove.  I turn on the oven, and then put the butter in a small pyrex dish or spare measuring cup on the top of the stove.  The butter melts from the oven heat while I am setting out ingredients, greasing the pan, peeling the apples, etc.  Of course this doesn’t work if you have a built-in wall oven. You can also put the dish with butter in the oven, but keep a close eye so it doesn’t start boiling and spattering!  

Stewed Apples with Molasses

Erasmus Anderson’s second letter home, which we looked at last Friday, ended by saying that he and his friends had been in the countryside where they picked up some apples for a quarter. For that small amount of money, he filled his knapsack.

Apples for Stewed Apples

Organic Red Delicious Apples from above

I picked up these organic Red Delicious apples at the Farmer’s Market for considerably more than 25 ¢. They are quite small, particularly compared to a giant Honey Crisp I showed you with the recipe for Harriette’s Apple Dumplings.

But besides just eating them out of hand, what do you suppose the soldiers could do with their apples?  Of course they could just impale them on a stick and roast them over the fire–a perfectly good treat, particularly if the apples are sweet. But older varieties might not have been all that sweet, and if one had a sweet tooth, one might want to add some of the sugar from their rations and cook them in a pot–stewed apples.

Apples for stewed apples

Organic Red Delicious Apples

The soldiers sometimes “liberated” cooking utensils like skillets and pots from people they passed. If Erasmus and his gang happened to have a cooking pot in Company E, and if they were lucky enough to have some kind housewife give them some molasses, they could have made these molasses stewed apples.

The Civil War articles in the “Homes County Republican” included a story about a soldier who had taken a pot from a farmer’s wife as they marched through the countryside. Later, when they were told to strip down to 1/4 gear for fast marching, they went past the same house and he offered to sell the pot back.

If the men of Company E did not have molasses, of course, they could just make them the way my Grandmother Vera Anderson made them (minus the cinnamon). One of my very favorite dishes from her table was the stewed, sugared apples, sprinkled with cinnamon and served cold as a side dish.

But for Erasmus, I made these stewed apples with molasses. In our better-equipped kitchens, the warm molasses stewed apples would be very good indeed dribbled over ice cream or topped with whipped cream.

See more about molasses in this article at  American Food Roots. I doubt Erasmus would have mace on hand, but I highly recommend this sometimes overlooked spice to you.  It is the milder part of the nutmeg plant.

Molasses Stewed Apples
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Molasses Apples

Apples stewed with molasses
Course Side Dish
Cuisine American
Keyword apple
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 8
Author Vera Marie Badertscher

Ingredients

  • 6 cups peeled and sliced apples
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup molasses 1 teaspoon mace I used original strength
  • 1 tsp mace or nutmeg
  • 2-3 tbsp butter optional

Instructions

  • Put sliced apples in pan and pour water and molasses over. Add Mace and stir well.
  • Simmer until you can stick a fork through the larges slice easily, but not so long that the apples are mushy.
  • Stir in butter if you wish.
  • Let cool in pan slightly, then transfer to glass dish and refrigerate. You may serve warm, but I prefer cold. Good over ice cream or with whipped cream.

Notes

Cooking time and amount of sweetener will depend on the apples you use, so times here are approximate. I used the very small organic red delicious apples I got at the Farmer's Market to approximate the apples the Civil War soldiers might find on trees along their route. However, a tarter, more solid apple might be a better choice generally.
Similarly, you have a wide choice on molasses. If you like the flavor of molasses, you can go straight for the Blackstrap (but I would increase the water and lessen the amount of molasses) or if you are not all that sure about the taste, go with a lighter molasses and water it down.