I didn’t eat apple pie growing up — but I thought I did. After all, we made it in a pie plate. My mother kept me in the dark about this until I was in grade school. Then I learned the thing we called apple pie wasn’t apple pie at all. It was szarlotka. How she managed to pull the wool over my eyes in New England, the heart of apple country, I’ll never know. Either way, when I did finally try pie, it was a terrible disappointment compared to our szarlotka. Unlike pie (and unlike the classic Polish szarlotka of pastry sandwiching apple filling), this recipe, adapted from my book “Dobre Dobre: Baking From Poland and Beyond” (Chronicle, 2025), is succulent and sweet with loads of soft and tart baked apples nestled in custardy cake. And really, this is more cake than pie, made in a pie plate or a springform pan spread with thick batter that leaks between the apples. It’s a kind of Jewish apple cake, and it need not make any apologies for not being pie, though I’ll always think of it that way.
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