Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Great Fall Desert Apple Crisp Recipe

By Eric Cook

During the summer we prefer cool deserts, but as fall and winter approach, our taste buds want something warm from the oven. One easy yet tasty fall desert to serve warm and complete a mean is an apple crisp. An apple crisp recipe us usually easy enough that even beginning cooks can follow the directions.

Apple crisps are one of several simple yet delicious baked deserts that use the fruits of the season and pastry toppings. If you want to try other similar deserts, look for recipes for Brown Bettys, Pandowdies, Crumbles, Cobblers or Grunts. These home-style deserts can be great comfort foods. In fact, you may find them difficult to resist. The topping on an apple crisp is a mixture the is much like that of a streusel. The topping will normally contain butter, flour sugar, oatmeal and nuts. There are also some spices to mix in which will complement the apples or other fruit that may be used.

When the desert is done and you open your oven, you will immediately see why this desert is called an apple crisp.

Fortunately, the time that our taste buds begin to long for deserts like apple crisps is just the time that they are starting to arrive fresh in the markets. Freshly harvested apples make the best deserts. Choose a good tart cooking apple such as a Granny Smith for your apple crisp. Feel free to add other fruits that would complement the apples, such as raspberries or cranberries. In Great Brittan, a favorite addition is Blackberries. Serve your freshly baked apple crisp warm topped with ice cream.

Try using old fashioned rolled oats that are larger in size than the quick cooking oats. They will give the topping a better texture and a better flavor. Oatmeal can be found very inexpensively in the bulk food aisle of your grocery store. Old fashioned oats make a higher quality apple crisp.

Oats are a whole grain cereal that are very good for you. They can help to lower your cholesterol and are a great source of fiber. Add the fiber of the oats to the fiber of the apples and you have a desert that is both good for you and tastes great.

For an easy apple crisp, start by greasing a 9x12 inch cake pan. Peel, core and slice 4 medium sized Granny Smith apples. The slices should be thin. Add the apple slices to the baking pan and top with the following apple crisp topping.

The topping is made with 3/4 cups of brown sugar, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup old fashioned oats, one third coup of margarine, cinnamon and nutmeg. Normally it will take 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon of each of the spices, but adjust to taste. Mix these toppings until they form a crumbly mixture and spread over the apples.

Place the apple crisp in an oven that has been preheated to 375 degrees and cook for half an hour or until the apples become tender.

Serve your desert warm fresh out of the oven. Top with one scoop of ice cream. If you have leftovers, they can be eaten cold or warmed for thirty seconds in the microwave oven.

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