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If I could take one dessert with me to a desert island, I would choose apple pie without a shadow of a doubt. On a shortcrust pastry, with peeled apples cut into cubes, slightly sweet, not too sour, smelling of cinnamon and covered with a crunchy crumble.

The apple pie was supposedly invented by the early nineteenth-century French confectioner Marie Carame, to whom we also owe the éclair and mayonnaise. He created the cake called "charlotte russe" for his employer, Tsar Alexander the First, and named it after his sister-in-law, Princess Charlotte, later Tsarina.

Apple cake has always been present in Polish cuisine. In the first old Polish cookbook from the eighteenth century I found such a recipe. Mix wheat flour with water and yeast, and when it starts to set well, add saffron, if you want. Cut the peeled apples into three and wrap them in this dough and put them in hot olive oil or butter, and after frying, sprinkle with sugar and serve.

In the nineteenth century, we borrowed a recipe for apple pie from the French. The most famous Polish cook, Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, in the late nineteenth-century bible of Polish cuisine, "365 dinners for five zlotys," gives such a recipe for apple pie. Knead together a quarter of a pound of young butter, a quart of flour, a spoonful of sugar, and a little hot water as boiling water. Make the dough in a cold place, roll it out as thinly as possible, cover the bottom and sides of a saucepan greased with butter and sprinkled with breadcrumbs. After putting the dough in, sprinkle the bottom and sides with breadcrumbs again, put in the center apples, peeled, very finely chopped and previously stewed with sugar and mixed with cinnamon and raisins. After putting in a lot of apples, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, cover with dough and put in the oven. On top of the dough, put a little young butter and pierce the dough in several places so that it does not get damp from the steam. It must stand in the oven for an hour. Proportion for 6 people.
There are plenty of apple pie recipes. I, unsurprisingly, liked Mom's version the best, but I didn't have time to write it down or remember it, and despite the many experiments I've undertaken, I'm nowhere near her version.

Peel two and a half kilograms of apples - an orthodox sweet tooth will only allow two types: gray rennet or antonovka, for me any type is good - I made the last apple pie with a very sweet variety, golden delicious. Cut the apples into quarters, remove the cores, and then cut into one-centimeter cubes. Add two tablespoons of sugar or more if you have sour apples. Add cinnamon and half a cube of butter. You can add a little lemon to sweet apples. Fry for 20 minutes. If the apples release too much juice, set them aside and reduce the juice. To three cups of wheat flour, add 1.5 cubes of cold butter cut into cubes, four egg yolks and half a cup of sugar or a whole cup if you prefer more sweetness. Knead the dough, but as briefly as possible, so that only lumps of butter are no longer visible. I help myself first with a mixer and finish with my hands. Place the dough block in the freezer for an hour. Spread two-thirds of the dough with your hands, in an even layer on the baking sheet. Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Sprinkle the dough with a thin layer of breadcrumbs. Place the apples, and on the apples, a well-beaten foam made of five egg whites with a spoonful of sugar. Grate the remaining third of the dough. Place in the oven for an hour at 170 degrees. I can't decide whether it's better immediately after taking it out of the oven, after an hour, or the next day.

The best assessment of my dishes is the opinion of my younger daughter. I always ask her whose version she likes better: mine or grandma's. I always hear the same answer, but I don't lose faith that one day my dish will be better. In the case of my last apple pie, there was even a light at the end of the tunnel. My daughter said that grandma's apple pie was better, but only because grandma blends the apples.