Apple Picking Follow-Up

I made apple crisp (3x) since my fiance loves it and it was a good way to use up the apples. The recipeI used is from Epicurious.com.

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

(Bon Appetit, March 1993)

Ingredients:

1 c. firmly packed golden brown sugar

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

3.5 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced (into 1/4 in. slices to make them crunchier)

1 c. all purpose flour

1 c. sugar

1 c. (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter 13x9x2 inch glass baking dish. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in large bowl. Add apples and toss to coat. Transfer apple mixture to prepared dish.

Combine four, 1 c. sugar, and butter in medium bowl. Using pastry blender or fingertips, blend ingredients until coarse meal forms. Spread flour mixture evenly over apples.

Bake crisp 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake crisp until apples are tender and topping is golden brown, about 30 min. Let stand 15 min. before serving.

Serves 10.

My notes / revisions:

• Served warm with vanilla ice cream! (Cool whip also works, but it has a different consistency.)
• I didn't butter the baking dish - this wasn't necessary.
• I also combined all the ingredients in a bowl without the apples. I spread the apples in the dish and spread the topping mixture on top. This concentrated the flavors in the crisp and allowed the apples to complement the topping, preventing the apples themselves from getting too sweet.
• I used 1 - 1.5 c. of brown sugar, sprinkling it on top to add to the caramelization.
  I also roughly chopped 3/4 c. of walnuts and spread them on top of the crisp mixture rather than mixing it into the crisp. This allowed the nuts to actually toast in the oven. No one likes soggy nuts.

A close-up of the crisp: