Szarlotka: Polish apple pie with grated apples and cinnamon
Two layers of crisp, buttery shortcrust and a thick layer of apples stewed with cinnamon. The pastry has egg yolks and sour cream in it, so it slices cleanly instead of crumbling. Best made with tart cooking apples.
Your own work in that: 50 min.
- Pastry 15 min
- Chilling 45 min
- Apples 25 min
- Assembling 10 min
- Baking 55 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneMake the pastry
Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, add the sugar and cold butter in cubes. Chop with a knife or rub with your fingertips into crumbs. Add the yolks and sour cream and quickly bring together into a ball. The less you work it, the crisper it bakes.
Ingredients: 450 g plain flour · 250 g cold butter · 120 g sugar · 3 pcs egg yolks · 2 tbsp sour cream, 18 % · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pinch salt
TipWarm hands melt butter. If the dough is sticky, chill it 10 minutes instead of adding flour.
Butter rubbed into flourChill
Divide the pastry in two, the larger piece (60 %) for the base and the smaller for the top. Wrap in film and refrigerate for 45 minutes.
Two discs of pastry in film, into the fridgeGrate the apples
Peel and core the apples and grate them on the coarse side of a box grater. Sprinkle with lemon juice so they don't brown.
Ingredients: 1500 g tart apples · 60 g sugar · 2 tsp ground cinnamon · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 3 tbsp breadcrumbs
A bowl of grated apples with lemonStew with cinnamon
Put the apples in a wide pan with the sugar and cinnamon. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring, until they release their juice and most of it cooks off again. The filling should be thick, not watery. Cool.
TipA watery filling soaks the base. Very juicy apples need 5 minutes longer.
Apples stewed down, juice evaporatedLine the base
Heat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 24 × 24 cm tin with baking paper. Roll out (or coarsely grate) the larger piece of pastry and press it over the base, prick with a fork. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs: they absorb the apple juice.
Base pricked with a fork, dusted with breadcrumbsAssemble
Spread the cooled apples over the base and level them. Roll the second piece of pastry between two sheets of paper and lay it over the apples, or grate it straight onto them for a crumbly top.
Apple layer being covered with pastryBake
180 °C, conventional, middle shelf, 50–55 minutes, until the top is golden. Cool in the tin: warm szarlotka falls apart, cold szarlotka cuts into neat squares.
Golden top, icing sugar through a sieveServe
Cut into squares and dust with icing sugar. Warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, cold with coffee.
Ingredients: 2 tbsp icing sugar
Cross-section: a thick apple layer between two crisp crusts
Before you start
Which apples?
Tart and firm: Bramley, Antonovka, Boskoop. Sweet dessert apples give a bland, mushy filling.
Skip the stewing?
You can use raw grated apples squeezed of juice, but the layer sinks and the base ends up damper.
Storing
Covered in the fridge, 4 days. Freezes in squares; refresh 10 minutes at 160 °C after thawing.
