Apple Crisp

Ever since I was a kid, this has been one of my favorite desserts. Apple pie can't hold a candle to my mom's apple crisp. I've made her recipe several times, but this time, I wanted to try Fannie's. I did use oatmeal in the topping, whereas Fannie's recipe uses only flour. The technique is much different than my mom's, but it turned out really good! To me, this is more like a cobbler, with the topping having a cobbled look, whereas I think of apple crisp as having a crumb topping. But, it was still very good and I think I will be making Fannie's version again for sure.

For this version, I used:

4 c. chopped or sliced apples (peel if not using organic)
1/2 c. oatmeal
1/4 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. white flour
1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. non-aluminum baking powder
1 egg
1 stick butter, melted

Chop the apples and put in the bottom of an 8x8 baking pan.

 

In a small bowl, mix oatmeal, flour, sugar, and baking powder

Add egg to flour mixture and mix it in until everything is moistened

Spread evenly over apples in baking pan. You may have to move the batter around some on the apples to cover them as much as possible. The batter will be very thick and a bit clumpy.

Pour butter slowly and evenly all over surface of batter. Use the back of a spoon to spread it and make sure everything is buttered.

 

Bake 25-30 minutes at 350. 

 

That last step (before cooking) sounded very strange to me, and I was sure it wouldn't be nearly as good as my mom's. But it was really good! The topping did indeed have a 'crispy' skim on top. It was buttery and just sweet enough. It baked into a cobbled type topping. If I ate this without knowing what it was, I'd call it apple cobbler. It had just enough topping, and since I'm not a fan of regular pie crust, I found this to be a wonderful alternative. Highly recommended. 

 

Blueberry Cobbler

If you have used The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, and you should definitely get one if you don't already have a basic cookbook that you LOVE, you know that a lot of the recipes overlap. Remember that basic cake recipe I posted yesterday? Well, here's another place you can use it. Just mix up the batter and pour it on top of this.

Up close and textural.

So, for this recipe, the cobbler part goes like this:

• Take two cups of berries (or any fruit you want to cobble. Is that the right word?)

I used 3 cups of berries because I love them!

• Sprinkle with one tablespoon of flour

• Top with Cottage Pudding (AKA, basic cake recipe used as a cake, or top for cobblers, upside down cakes, etc)

I would only use half the cake recipe, because otherwise, it was way too thick, and more like blueberry upside down cake. It wasn't a thin cobbler topping like I expected. Use the full recipe for upside down cakes or regular cakes, but definitely not for cobbler.

• Cook at 425 for 30 minutes.

Enjoy the goodness. 

I prefer the goodness topped with ice cream or whipped cream.