Seems only logical that this whole process start with my Grandmother’s Apple Crisp. From what I can remember – this thing was next level. A wonderful layer of warm and gooey sweet apples, with a layer of sweet crisp on top. And it’s important to note – the top layer was actually CRISP. Problem is – NO ONE can recreate it. There was serious Gandolf / Dumbledore sorcery going on here.
The biggest problem comes that there are no instructions; no cooking times or temperatures – no instructions at all. Just the list of ingredients. I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing this quite often in my new adventure.
That’s all we have to work with. No pastry, no crust. Just apples and some other stuff in an baking dish. Hence the title of this post : ‘Apple Crisp – Take 1’. We’ll be re-visiting this one from time to time.
My gut tells me to make some sort of crumble with the flour, sugar and butter. However, when I tried to get my Mom to remember as much as she could about Grandmommy making this – the one thing she could remember is her just plopping big blobs of butter on the top before she baked it.
This was the chain of events that lead to our first Apple Mush.
Peeled and sliced six apples and then I cooked them on the stove top for a short period of time with the sugar and cinnamon. Mistake #1
I poured everything in an 8×8 casserole dish with the water. (What the hell is the water for???) Then I proceeded to unceremoniously dump the flour and big bits of butter right on top. It just felt wrong to tell you the truth!
Unsure of what temperature I should use, I went with the classic 350 and went from there. 20 minutes later it was just a buttery uncooked flour mess.
Another 20 minutes later it was still buttery uncooked flour – but after pre-cooking on the stove, and then cooking in the oven for 40 minutes, the apples were starting to disintegrate. Best at this point to cut my losses and mark this one up as a Baking Fail.
It didn’t taste HORRIBLE. It definitely had a slight uncooked flour taste – but the apples themselves were tasty; albeit super mushy. My husband, who is a huge apple pie fan, scraped some of the top off and had some apple mush with ice cream later that evening and lives to tell the tale.
Couple thoughts for next time: I won’t be pre-cooking anything. That didn’t help or achieve anything. I also won’t cut the apples as thinly. Lastly, I’ll go with my gut and maybe use the flour, sugar and butter to make a crumble of sorts to go on top and see how that goes. If you have any ideas, please feel free to let me know!
I’m sure my Grandmother is having a good laugh in Heaven right now.
I would say the apples are probably sliced and then coated with the sugar/cinnamon. place in baking dish. Use a pastry cutter to mix the flour/water/butter and sprinkle on top. then bake
Perhaps you make the crumble with the water and blob the butter on top? Or make a pastry dough with the cold water and put the butter blobs on top? Could part of the crunchiness been from a sugar sprinkle crust that hardened on top? It’s an interesting mystery for sure
I remember your Grandmother’s Apple Crisp. I also remember that no one else could get it to come out of the pan the same as hers. It may be a secret she’s keeping with her in Heaven.
Maybe you’re supposed to toss the apples in the flour? Like how some apple pie recipes call for coating the fruit in cornstarch before baking?