new england | How We Eat

Apple crisp: Prenez-le au dôme!!! (1)

October 5, 2009

Don’t worry, blogosphere. I didn’t forget about you. I was back east, in upstate New York, picking apples! In fact, I picked a whole bushel of apples, and brought them back to California with me on an airplane. This brings me to a point: It is perfectly okay to bring apples on a plane as carry-on luggage. However, if you are flying out of JFK, and
you pack a bushel of apples into a camoflauge backpack and put it through the x-ray machine, the TSA attendant will ask you what you are doing with all of those apples, and they will want to go through your bags. When traveling with apples, check in earlier than usual.

Those who have grown up in the Northeast (especially, those who have subsequently left for warmer climes) do not need to be told that the best apples in the world come from this region. I tried to explain this to the TSA people, but they seemed uninterested. I wanted to bring these apples back to share with my west coast friends who know the difference between a store-bought apple and a proper one. Sadly, due to logistical concerns beyond my control, these apples sat on a countertop at room temperature for approximately one week upon my return to California. The warm weather softened them up real fast, which made them mostly unenjoyable as a snack, but still suitable for baking. So I grabbed a few apples and baked them the only way I knew how, which is to say that I crisped them.

First and foremost, start with an old hand-me-down recipe from your mother. Depending on which era this recipe comes from, cross out the word “margarine” and write down “butter, salted”. First thing is to peel and slice the apples, obviously. The smart thing to do would be to peel and slice as you go, until the bottom of your 9″ x 13″ baking pan is covered in apple slices. My mistake was to just grab a bunch of apples and start peeling. Once denuded, these apples must be baked. Luckily, I had a little 8″ x 8″ or so pan for all of the extra slices I made. Slice the apples to about 1/2 of an inch thick. Apples will bake down quite a bit, so stack them about twice as high (?) as you would like to see the apple layer in the finished product. Squeeze lemon or lime juice all over the apples once you’ve put them in the pan, then make sure the apples are coated. This will prevent the fruit from becomming brownified². After all that, I mixed in a little lime zest just to see if I would notice a difference.

The crisp part is mostly simple. Combine all of your dry ingredients (oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg) into a bowl and mix them (in my case, I had to remember to one-and-a-half everything from the original recipe). The tricky part for me is always the butter. The butter has to be soft. I never have the foresight to take the butter out of the fridge ahead of time. Luckily, I have a microwave. For two refridgerated sticks of butter, unwrap and set in the microwave for 15 seconds. Turn over, microwave for an additional 8 seconds. This will more or less simulate 8 hours of sitting around at room temperature.

Now you have to somehow turn this soft butter into crumbs as you work it into the dry mixture. I am told there is something called a pastry knife, which is made for this type of job. Since I don’t own one, I use the next best thing: two forks. Just kind of scrape away at the butter in opposite directions, then chop the bigger lumps individually until the butter pieces are pea-sized and coated in flour and sugar. Stir the mixture together one last time, then distribute the result evenly across the surface of the apples.

Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. A trick I like to use is to bake for 25 minutes, then sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top. Stick it under the broiler for about 5 minutes, but check to make sure it’s not getting burned by the broiler! I’ve had that happen before and it will ruin your crisp, of course. Always serve hot with vanilla ice cream.