Name and pronunciation: szarlotka [shar-lot-kah]
Description: apple pie
Type of cuisine: Eastern European
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It is a delicious twist on my Traditional Polish Apple Pie. Adding bananas instead of upping the sugar is a great solution when your apples are not very sweet. Cardamom is amazing and flavourful, especially combined with cinnamon. Together, so good and easy to make!
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10 servings • Preparation time: about 2 hours • Baking time: 50-60 minutes
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Tips:
01
If your over tends to underperform at the bottom (like mine), pre-bake the bottom crust for about 10-15 minutes.
02
When you start, make sure butter is cold and very hard.
03
Used what you have in your kitchen to create an original look for your pie. Here, I used a pizza cutter to cut pastry strips and my son’s playdough star cutter, since my cookie cutters were too big.
04
Serve it with our thick, creamy caramel sauce. Amazing!
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Ingredients:
Pastry:
✽ 300 g all-purpose flour
✽ 250 g butter
✽ 1 medium to large egg
✽ 3 tablespoons sugar
✽ 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
✽ 1½ teaspoons baking powder
✽ powder sugar (or a mix of sugar and cinnamon) to dust
Fruit filling:
✽ 1 kg apples
✽ 2 bananas
✽ 2 tablespoons sugar (or more to taste)
✽ 1 teaspoon cinnamon (or more to taste)
✽ 1 teaspoon cardamom (or more to taste)
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Method:
01
Make traditional Polish apple pie pastry following these instructions and place it wrapped in a fridge.
02
Peel, cut and cook apples the same way as in the traditional recipe.
03
When the apples are soft, mash them, then add two mashed bananas, sugar, cinnamon and cardamom. You can start from a teaspoon of each, but I actually like much more spices in my apple pie. They make fruit (especially apples) so fragrant and delicious.
04
Cool the apples throughly before layering them on the pre-baked bottom. It is an important step, since it will take you a little longer to place ornamental top and you do not want the heat from apples to melt butter in your apple pie pastry.
05
For the decorative top, roll out remaining half of cold pastry and cut any shapes you want. Gently lift them off the workspace with a wide, cold knife or, even better, a dough cutter. Place on cooled apples and bake the same as here.
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Enjoy!
Our Eastern Kitchen 