apple crisp

I have a secret to tell you. Come closer.

I don't really like pie.

Now before you call me blasphemous and anti-American, let me explain. Pie is okay, and I like making it because everyone else really seems to enjoy it. The associated paraphernalia, like pie plates and rolling pins, are fun (and collectible!). But pie is too formal; it has to be cut into a perfect wedge and put on a plate with the tip pointing at you and eaten with a dessert fork. Bad pie crust is...really bad, and good pie crust is just buttery and boring. A final blow to pie supremacy, some varieties of pie do not work à la mode (Have you ever had banana cream pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream? It just feels icky to think about it.). It should be no surprise that I evaluate the merit of any dessert based on its effectiveness as a vehicle for ice cream (I guess by that logic, waffle cones are king.).

This is not to say that I'm not gonna make pies anymore, just that I'm a huge fan of the crisp. It's relaxed where pie is formal. It takes to endless variations and it's hard to mess up. Most importantly, it needs a big scoop of ice cream to reach the apotheosis of crisp-ness.





This recipe came from my great aunt Marge Jensen and it's the one we've always used in my family. I always get out this stained recipe card in my grandma's handwriting (I love the corner where it says "Marge Jensen" and "Good") but I never follow it. It calls for margarine and is way too sweet for my taste. So here's what I did last time:

Butter a glass baking pan (Mine was about 7x11 but you can go smaller and have a higher crisp to apples ratio, or bigger, but that requires a lot of apples.) and fill it 3/4 full with peeled, sliced apples. Add:

1/4 c white sugar (I'm sure brown would be good too)
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg

and mix it all up in the pan.

For the crisp, mix together:

1 c flour
1 c oatmeal
1/4 c sugar
1/4 lb butter (that's one stick)

If you can cut the butter in so it remains crumbly it will make for a rubblier crisp; if it gets totally mixed up, it will be more like a cookie on top.

Top the apples with the crisp, and then sprinkle on:

~1/3 c brown sugar (or more or less to taste).

Bake at 325 for an hour (check on it before an hour, obviously, so it doesn't burn...to a crisp - especially if you're Tawny).

Serve warm with ice cream!

One experiment I tried this time was to leave one apple unpeeled to see if that would bug me (because not peeling the apples would be more fiber and less work, right?). But I can't even find that apple in there so the experiment was either really successful or a big failure.



Some ideas for variations:

- don't peel the apples?
- use whole wheat pastry flour in place of white flour (this works just fine, I've done it)
- add cranberries or craisins to the apples
- add slivered or chopped or ground almonds to the crisp...or pecans, or walnuts