As the air starts to become crisp and the rustle of autumn leaves is dancing across the yard I know it's time to fire up the oven.
Last week the grocery store had an awesome deal on apples. Three pounds of Gala apples for $1.99. I was delighted to find that the sale was still going on when we made our grocery run this week.
There were still three apples left from last week. You know the ones. The apples that are fine but not so pretty. They are a little bruised and maybe a bit soft where they clunked around on the bottom of the bag. I like to save those apples for baking.
The other secret weapon I have in my kitchen arsenal is Vietnamese Cinnamon. Holy mother of cinnamon, this shit is good. Regular cinnamon from the grocery will work just fine but I'd highly recommend getting your hands on some really great cinnamon like the Vietnamese cinnamon I bought two pounds of this summer. Yeah. Two pounds. You read that right. This shit is so damn good it's going in everything I can think of. If you don't have a chef friend to buy it in bulk for you, Penzey's is really fantastic.
Digging through all my old recipes, everything I was finding for an apple crisp is for at least a 9" pie pan and that's just too big for the two of us. There's also no way these 3 apples are going to stretch far enough to fill that pan. I've modified a classic apple crisp recipe here to fit into my handmade ceramic Brie Baker which is just the right size for 2-4 servings.
Ingredients:
3 small apples (or 2 large). I prefer Gala apples
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon (or more to taste)
2 Tablespoons Sugar (more or less to taste)
Optional: 1/2 lemon (if you like your apple crisp a little extra tart, squeeze half a lemon over the apples before adding the sugar and cinnamon)
Topping:
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/3 cup brown sugar
4 Tablespoons melted butter
Now let's make some yum!
- peel, core and chop the apples
- layer the apples into the Brie Baker
- Optional: for a tart crisp squeeze 1/2 a lemon over the apples
- sprinkle 2 Tablespoons of sugar (or more) over the apples
- sprinkle 1 Tablespoon of tasty cinnamon over the apples
In a separate small mixing bowl:
- melt 4 Tablespoons of butter
- add oatmeal, flour and brown sugar
- mix with a fork until the butter is evenly distributed
Pile the topping mixture over the apples and place the whole thing in the cold oven.
You might have been wondering why I didn't tell you what temperature for preheating the oven. It's because there is no preheating needed. Also, if you're using a handmade ceramic dish, you always want to put it into a cold oven so it doesn't temperature shock and crack.
Crank that bad boy up to 350 and let it bake for 35-40 minutes.
Your house is going to smell AMAZEBALLS.
Sometimes we like the apple crisp steaming hot from the oven with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream. Other times, a simple bloop of fresh whipped cream is in order. Tonight, we're just going to eat it simple and plain on the new plaid snack plates.
Enjoy!
If you'd love to have the ceramics I've used in the recipe you can find them right here:
