Richard Grech This is my site.

Apple Crisp

I don't really know what the point of this site is, so I'm going to tell you what I made for dessert last night.

I was really craving something sweet and we had 4 large apples in our little fruit tray on the table.  I don't know what kind of apples they were because my wife did the food shopping this week and she didn't remember the variety.  She said she thought the name began with a "j", but a quick review of allaboutapples.com reveals that there are 18 such varieties.

Anyhow, the night air has been cool and fall is settling into the New York City area, so I thought "What better to make than a nice apple crisp?"  Disaster nearly set in when I couldn't find our fruit/vegetable peeler; I was forced to peel the apples with a paring knife.  The knife wasn't as sharp as I would have liked, but I struggled through and peeled 3 apples.  The full recipe follows after the break.

A crummy iPhone photo of my yummy apple crisp.

Rich's Apple Crisp

The Filling

• 3 large apples or 5 medium apples. Use whatever variety you like best.  For a nice treat use 2 or 3 different varieties.
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ground nutmeg (this is optional - I usually grate in about 1/8-1/4 of a teaspoon - you want to get a hint of nutmeg, not really have it overpower everything)

The Topping

• 1 stick of butter (melted)
• 1 1/4 cup of all purpose flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Putting It All Together

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Peel, core and cut the apples into slices.  If you are using one of those 8-segment apple corers, I would then slice those 8 in half to get 16 slices per apple.
3. In a large bowl, toss the apples, sugar and cinnamon.  Let this all sit together while the oven preheats and you make the topping.
4. In a separate large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Try to break up the brown sugar so it's evenly distributed and you don't have big lumps of brown sugar.
5. Gradually pour the melted butter over the flour mixture and mix it in until your crumb mixture comes together.  You can use a rubber spatula to do this, but I've found that it's easiest to just use your hands.
6. Put a pie plate or baking dish onto a small cookie sheet (to catch any possible overflow).  I usually use a glass pie plate for this, but really any size or shape baking vessel will do.
7. Pour the apples into the dish to create an even layer.
8. Sprinkle the topping over the apples
9. Place in the middle of the oven and bake.  I like some bite to the apples, so I usually bake mine for 30-35 minutes.  If you like softer apples, bake it longer.  It's easy enough to check with a fork to see how soft the apples are.