Classic apple crisp
Soft, cinnamon-sweet apples under a crunchy brown sugar oat topping, the dessert that makes the whole kitchen smell like fall.
- 80 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 8
- About $1.02 a serving
- 370 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: Make the full amount. Whatever’s left keeps for tomorrow.
Ingredients
For 8 servings.
- 6 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- 1 tbsp lemons, juice
- 1 stick butter
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 2 cups vanilla ice cream, to serve (optional)
From your pantry
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1½ tsp ground cinnamon, divided
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
- ¼ tsp salt
Each serving has about 370 calories, 3 g protein, 63 g carbs and 13 g fat, and costs about $1.02 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No lemons? Limes work.
- No butter? Ghee works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
the oven to 375°F and an 8-inch square baking dish.
Preheat. Preheating means turning the oven on before you start, so it’s fully hot when the food goes in. Food that starts in a cold oven cooks unevenly and doesn’t brown the same.
How you’ll know: The oven beeps or its light clicks off, usually 10 to 15 minutes after you turn it on.
Grease. Greasing means rubbing a thin layer of butter or oil over the inside of a pan so food doesn’t stick. Get into the corners, where batter likes to cling.
How you’ll know: The pan looks evenly shiny all over, with no dry patches and nothing pooling in the bottom.
, quarter and the apples, then each quarter into wedges about ¼ inch thick.
Peel. Peeling means removing the skin with a vegetable peeler or a small knife. It takes off tough or bitter skins, though potato and carrot skins are fine to leave on unless the recipe insists.
How you’ll know: The color underneath is even all over, with no patches of skin left behind.
Core. Coring means cutting out the hard center of things like apples, peppers or cabbage. That center is tough and woody, so it’s the part you throw away.
How you’ll know: What’s left is all tender flesh, with no hard, pale center.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Dolly’s tip: Lay each quarter flat side down so it can’t roll. A steady piece is a safe piece.the apples in the dish with the lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch and 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon until evenly coated.
Toss. Tossing means gently lifting and turning food so everything gets coated, like pasta in sauce or vegetables in oil. It coats every piece evenly without mashing anything.
How you’ll know: Every piece looks glossy or evenly coated, with no dry spots hiding underneath.
Microwave the butter in a large bowl until , about 1 minute, then stir in the oats, flour, brown sugar, salt and the rest of the cinnamon until clumpy.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Timer: 1 min
Food safety: Don’t eat raw dough or batter, not even a lick of the spoon. Raw flour can carry E. coli and raw eggs can carry salmonella until they’re cooked. The one exception is dough with no eggs, made with flour heated to 165°F.
Scatter the topping evenly over the apples, squeezing some into small clumps as you go.
Dolly’s tip: The clumps bake into the crunchy bits everyone fights over.Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the topping is deep and the juices bubble thickly at the edges.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Timer: 40 min
Dolly’s tip: Poke an apple through the topping with a knife. It should slide in with no resistance.Let it cool for 10 minutes so the juices , then serve warm with a scoop of ice cream if you like.
Thicken. Thickening means cooking a sauce or soup until it’s less runny, by simmering it down or adding something like cornstarch. A thicker sauce clings to food instead of pooling on the plate.
How you’ll know: It coats the back of a spoon, and a line drawn through it with your finger holds its shape.
Timer: 10 min
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop picks a dessert for treat night, puts what you need on the week’s grocery list, and walks you through each step.
