I made this today for a play date at Laura’s. It was pretty popular. There was just enough leftover to bring Brian home a small portion. This was adapted from a recipe in Cook’s Illustrated from Sept 2010. The real star is the chopped pecans in the topping, which give it a cookie-like flavor. Also the apples come out perfectly cooked every time, without the mushiness many apple crisps suffer.

“Flawless Apple Crisp”

Topping:
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup finely chopped pecans (or walnuts, or almonds)
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

Filling:
3 pounds Braeburn apples (or Golden Delicious or Honeycrisp or Jazz; about 5-6 apples), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2 inch wedges
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup of apple cider (or juice)
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

1. For the topping: Combine flour, pecans, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in medium bowl. Stir in butter until mixture is thoroughly combined. Set aside.

2. Filling: Toss apples, sugar, and cinnamon in a large bowl; set aside. Bring cider to a simmer in large saucepan, cook until reduced to 1/2 cup, ~10 minutes. Transfer to a liquid measuring cup, stir in lemon juice and set aside.

3. Heat 2 TB butter in same saucepan over medium heat. Add apples and cook, stirring frequently, until apples begin to soften, 8-10 minutes. Do not fully cook apples. Remove pan from heat and stir in reduced cider until apples are coated.

4. Using large slotted spoon, transfer apples to 8×8 or 9×9 oven-safe baking dish, leaving some of the liquid behind in the saucepan. Spread topping evenly over the fruit and bake until topping is golden brown, about 18 minutes. Cool on a wire rack at least 15 minutes before serving.

Notes: The original recipe called for more sugar; I always reduce sugar in apple recipes like these because they usually end up being too sweet for my taste. If you like, add another 1/4 cup of white sugar to the topping and double the sugar stirred in with the apples. I also reduced the flour in the topping a little and pumped up the pecans and oats.

The original recipe also instructs to make the whole thing in a large oven-safe skillet from start to finish, but I don’t have one of those. If you do that, reduce bake time to 15 minutes. (The recipe did give instructions for transfer to another baking dish, which I followed.)

The technique of pre-cooking the fruit on the stove in this recipe is meant to reduce time in the oven, making for less-mushy topping and non-overcooked apples. In a typical recipe for crisp, the raw apples cook in the stove for an hour and basically steam in there, which can soften the “crisp” on top and overcook the fruit. When partially cooked on the stove, they can be stirred to ensure even cooking, and the steam escapes from the pot, reducing some of the extra moisture.

Also, the apple cider reduction really does intensify the apple flavor in the fruit. It’s a nice touch.