It's the autumn season and time for apples. My wife found a place near us that has a few varieties as well as a hayride and pumpkins too, and we made it out last weekend. I opted for the larger, peck-sized bag and it wasn't too hard to fill it up with SweeTangos. But it turns out a peck is a lot of apples. Some apple crisp sounded perfect and it worked out because we already had everything we needed. No one actually cares about why something was made, besides the fact it's a tasty treat you want to eat, so we'll move on.
Sidebar - I whipped this up quickly while making dinner, which was an amazingly delicious eggplant parmesan (something else I wanted to use up). I'd recommend it to anyone willing to try making it.
As I do for most things baking, I started with Sally's Baking Addiction. She hasn't let me down and her apple crisp was the template.
What you'll need:
Filling -
8 apples (I didn't peel them)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
Topping -
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 stick (1/2 cup or 8 tbsp) butter, cold from the fridge
1 cup old fashioned oats
The list above looks longer than it actually is, due to some repeats in both lists. In addition to apples you need brown sugar, flour, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, butter and oats. A short list, all of which we typically have on hand.
Short version:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, pull out 9"x13" baking pan
2. Chop up the apples, 1 inch long sections about 1/2 inch wide (most labor intensive step)
3. Combine filling ingredients in a mixing bowl (dump everything on apples, use spatula)
4. Pour filling into baking pan
5. Cut up cold butter into small squares
6. Combine topping ingredients, mix with fork (or something similar) until crumbles form
7. Pour topping on top of filling, covering it completely
8. Bake for ~45 minutes, should be bubbly when removed
9. Let cool enough to eat, have it with some ice cream
Notes: It really was super easy to make. Chop up apples, dump some stuff on it and mix. Mix up some other stuff. Then make two layers in a baking pan and bake. Done. Keep it in the fridge (reheating your portion) and eat within a week.
About the only change I made from the linked recipe was I skipped peeling the apples. I don't see any reason to do this.
About the only challenge encountered was with the butter. I didn't check that there was any in the fridge and had to settle for frozen. This made it tough to cut it into little squares and even harder to combine the topping ingredients to the extent I wanted. After struggling for a bit I just gave it some time to warm up before finishing that step, and used a pastry cutter (instead of a fork) to apply a bit more force in breaking up the butter.
Anyway if you have a bunch of apples and need a way to use some of them up, you can't find something much easier than this. Give it a try. I'm enjoying it now.
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