The crisp is a simple dessert that you can make in a pinch if you are craving a dessert or have to make one for company. All you really need is fruit, oatmeal, and sugar. After that it just depends on how far you want to take your eating experience. If you want to go to the “extreme!” I recommend adding a crumble topping, but if you want to avoid the fuss of making a crumble a simple oatmeal topping will still do the trick.
Crisps are related to cobblers which go back all the way to the colonists trying to make suet pudding. Suet pudding was a “pudding” that was baked inside a delicious crust (when done well). The crisp differs from the cobbler by what topping goes on top of it, on a crisp you typically just get oats, while on a cobbler it’s supposed to have some sort of biscuit topping.
Crisps nowadays are always of the apple variety. And for good reason, apples bake very well without mushing up too bad. Through Friends and Farms I have tons of apples year round. Apples tend to keep fairly well, I usually freeze my excess apples. But what inevitably happens is my freezer begins to explode with frozen apples, so I need to find a use for them. Enter Apple Crisps.
I decided to make an apple crisp because I didn’t have any other easy desserts up my sleeve one night. I used quince jam in this crisp because quince retains some chewiness when it’s turned into a jam. I love the texture it provides to the crisp and the almost flowery flavor in brings to the crisp itself.
If you don’t have quince jam lying around (and who does) you could do this with a strawberry preserve too.
Recipe – Baked Apple & Quince Jam Crisp
Ingredients
3 Apples peeled and sliced
1 Cup of Quince Preserve/Jam
1 1/2 Cups of Water
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 Cup of Oats
1/2 Cup of Granola
Method
Boil the apples and quince jam together in the water. Allow the water to reduce completely creating a nice syrupy mixture. Pour the mixture into a square baking pyrex. Pour the brown sugar over the mixture first, followed by the cinnamon, the oats, and finally the granola.
Bake in the oven until the oats turn golden brown at 350F. Be careful not to burn the granola, it has the tendency to blacken quickly sometimes.
Enjoy with some vanilla ice cream!
- 3 Apples peeled and sliced
- 1 Cup of Quince Preserve/Jam
- 1 1/2 Cups of Water
- 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1 Tsp. Cinnamon
- 1/2 Cup of Oats
- 1/2 Cup of Granola
- Boil the apples and quince jam together in the water. Allow the water to reduce completely creating a nice syrupy mixture. Pour the mixture into a square baking pyrex. Pour the brown sugar over the mixture first, followed by the cinnamon, the oats, and finally the granola.
- Bake in the oven until the oats turn golden brown at 350F. Be careful not to burn the granola, it has the tendency to blacken quickly sometimes.
- Enjoy with some vanilla ice cream!
