Easy Apple Crisp Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making an easy, delicious apple crisp. So let's get started. First off, set your oven to 350, so it's nice and hot. And now, you're gonna grab five to six apples. You want about two and a half pounds. Today, I'm using a combination of Granny Smith, which are nice and tart, with some Honeycrisp. Both of them will hold up well during baking. If you like a softer baking apple, go for a McIntosh, Golden Delicious, or Gala. My son Lachlan loves apples, so we always have a bunch on hand. I just use whatever we have. This is one of those really easy recipes you can make where you feel like a sweet treat, you don't have a lot of time. Just throw together a crisp. We're gonna peel all these apples, cut the flesh from the core, and then slice them into thin little slices. Once peeled, cut the flesh from the core. We don't wanna have any seeds. By the way, if you like my videos, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every single week. Now, we wanna slice the apples thinly. This bakes up pretty quickly, and you want them all to cook at the same rate, so just don't cut any giant pieces. Apple crisp became popular in the early 20th century. I think the first recorded version of it is from the 1920s. It's really popular because it's so easy to make. Almost done. Once your apple's all sliced up, transfer that to a big bowl. Two tablespoons of lemon juice will give you a nice zingy lift to contrast with the warming spices and the brown sugar. I'm just gonna eyeball it. Give it a little toss. Right now, you can add a third of a cup of granulated or brown sugar. Today, I'm gonna use brown. Tightly packed. A tablespoon of flour to help thicken the juice. Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. And a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg. You could add other spices you really like. A quarter teaspoon of cardamom, allspice, cloves, maybe a pinch of cloves. Give this a nice toss. Once that's nicely mixed, we can transfer this to an eight-by-eight-inch pan. You can lightly grease this just as an insurance that nothing will really stick, but it's pretty optional. Apples go in. If you're feeding a big crowd or people are extra hungry, you can just double this recipe and bake it in a nine-by-13-inch dish. Okay, spread those apples out into a nice, even layer. For some added richness, we're gonna grab a quarter cup of butter, cube it up into small pieces, and then sprinkle that over the top. The butter will melt in and be really delicious. Here, the butter will just change the mouth feel of the crisp a little bit and give you just a lovely hit of richness. You'll taste everything differently. That's why when you go to a restaurant, almost every single dish is started and finished with butter. It's actually pretty intense. I ate by myself on a trip, and I was seated at the chef's table where you can watch the kitchen working, and they were making pastas. It was like, double this to start, double that to finish. I was like, that's why it tasted so good. This can get set aside for a moment. You're gonna grab a large-to-medium bowl. Now we can make the crisp. Some lovely, old-fashioned rolled oats will give us a ton of crisp character. I want 1 1⁄4 cups, or 140 grams. 3⁄4 of a cup of all-purpose flour, that's 90 grams. 1⁄2 a cup, or 110 grams of brown sugar. A teaspoon of cinnamon. You could use pumpkin pie spice. Other false spices work really well in here, too. 1⁄2 a teaspoon of salt for some contrast, please. All right, the scale's done. Setting that aside. Mix this together so everything's nice and distributed. To hold this all together and make it delicious, we're gonna use 3⁄4 of a cup of cold butter cut into cubes. As you cut the butter, just pop that into your bowl. Now it's time to use your clean hands and work the butter into your mixture so it's nice and combined. Give it all a toss first and break apart these pieces of butter that are stuck. Okay, now get to mushing. If this is difficult for you, or you have texture issues, you could use a pastry blender to cut the butter in, or even a big fork. You wanna end up with a crumbly mixture that has little clumps the size of peas. If you have hot hands and your butter's kind of melted and you end up with like a giant glop, go ahead and pop it into the fridge, let it cool down, and you can crumble it up pretty easily then. I actually like to work this into one giant clump and then just break that apart. Nicely crumbled up. Let's assemble this and pop it into the oven. Crumble your crisp topping on top of the apples. Get a nice even layer and make sure you break up any large chunks. This will keep in the fridge for up to three days. It's gonna be delicious on the third day, but the topping does get wet, so it's not gonna have that crisp texture anymore. My apple crisp is ready to go into the oven, 350, for about 45 minutes, or until the top is golden and the juices are bubbling. In you go. Allow your crisp to cool, and once it's nearly warm, you can plate it, add a big scoop of ice cream, and just like that, it's ready to enjoy. This is giving such amazing apple pie vibes, but even better because that crunchy crisp topping with the soft, well-spiced apples is pure perfection. I hope you get a chance to make this delicious recipe, and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my Apple playlist.