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Sarah says:

Much to my delight, the Dutch love apple pie perhaps even more than the Americans do. Of course, they would never bake an apple pie from scratch at home. Heavens no, baking isn’t for doing at home, it’s for buying in a store. Check out the length our friend Beth had to go through to locate staple baking supplies in this city.

Fortunately, apple pie is on every cafe menu in the city so naturally it was our responsibilty to devote our seven months here to tasting every variety, rating them against each other and then proclaiming a ‘Best Apple Pie in Amsterdam’ winner. It would be rude not to. We weren’t so outrageous as to literally try every piece of pie in the city but we did try six, so roughly one per month considering time spent out of Amsterdam for the holidays and weekend trips.

Here are our results out of five bicycle bell dings:

6. Cafe Nielsen, Berenstraat 19

Earning only one ding, this apple pie was a real disappointment. The apples were mushy, the crust was way too buttery and cakey and there was no spice at all.

The following three tied for three dings:

5. Vlinder, Brouwersgracht 139

With a tasty marzipan base, firm apples and roasted almond slivers, this pie was enjoyed on a rainy Sunday afternoon. However, there was a lack of a counter taste to the sweetness and the base could have done with a bit more texture. Good but could have been better.

4. Walem, Keizersgracht 449

A piece of art really, thinly sliced apples forming a lovely cinnamon strata. Very nice texture but it could have done with a bit more spice and the crust was a bit too cakey.

3. Cafe Winkel, Noordermarkt 43

Having received rave reviews in our Get Lost Amsterdam book, I chose this to be our Thanksgiving apple pie. It did not disappoint even without the freshly whipped cream usually accompanying your slice when eaten in the cafe. It had a tasty amount of cinnamon and a very nice crust. For me, though, I hold out the big dings for pies with something a little special and this pie was literally just apples, small slices as well, and crust so we only gave it three dings.

The following two tied for four dings though in our hearts there is a clear winner:

2. Puccini, Staalstraat 21

This was more of an apple tart with a mouth watering almond paste base, beautiful firm apples and a near perfect balance between sweet and cinnamon. Definitely delicous, in fact we indulged twice, but it was a tart, not a pie.

#1, BEST APPLE PIE IN AMSTERDAM AWARD goes to:

Broodje Bert, Singel 321

Big chunks of apple, perfect sweetness, the kind of crust you could make a whole pie out of, baked with nuts and served with fresh whipped cream. Sheer perfection and the place is named for Bert of Bert and Ernie fame.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Amsterdam, Global Travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.