Name: Tremendous Apple Crisp
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients: 2.5 lb (about 6 medium) firm baking apples; 1/4 cup granulated sugar (for filling); 2 tbsp light brown sugar (for filling); 2 tbsp all-purpose flour (for filling); 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon (for filling); 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice; 1 tsp vanilla extract (for filling); 1/4 tsp kosher salt (for filling); 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats; 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (for topping); 3/4 cup, packed light brown sugar (for topping); 1 tsp ground cinnamon (for topping); 1/2 tsp kosher salt (for topping); 1/2 cup pecans, roughly chopped; 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and cubed; as needed vanilla ice cream (for serving)

Tremendous Apple Crisp

Prep

20m

Cook

45m

Total

65m

Bigly says

Listen. Apple crisp. TREMENDOUS apple crisp. And I have to be honest with you, because honesty is what we do here and almost nowhere else — most apple crisp is a SAD beige situation in a glass dish. Soggy. Mushy. Pale on top. People bring it to potlucks and other people pretend to like it to be polite. We all know. We ALL know. It's a national crisis nobody wants to talk about. The food media won't touch it. Cowards.

But MY apple crisp? Different story. Completely different story. The apples still have STRUCTURE. They've got bite. They're tender, they're juicy, they're swimming in their own glorious cinnamon-vanilla syrup, but they're not SOUP. Soup is what other so-called chefs give you. Soup with sad wet oats on top that they call 'crumble' but it's not crumble, it's oatmeal, it's a TOTAL disaster. A disgrace to apple crisp. They should be embarrassed.

The topping — and this is the part where I single-handedly fix the apple crisp problem in this country — the topping is BUTTERY. It's CRUNCHY. Oats AND flour AND brown sugar AND pecans AND a little bit of salt, because salt is the unsung hero of dessert. An old Italian woman cornered me once and made me promise to do it this way. I promised. I keep my promises. Big crispy clusters. Golden brown. The kind of topping you eat right off the spoon while it cools and your spouse yells at you. I've been yelled at. I keep eating. That's the bottom line.

Ingredients

2.5 lb (about 6 medium)firm baking apples(Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, or a mix — NOT Red Delicious, Red Delicious is for cowards)
1/4 cupgranulated sugar (for filling)
2 tbsplight brown sugar (for filling)
2 tbspall-purpose flour (for filling)
1.5 tspground cinnamon (for filling)
1 tbspfresh lemon juice
1 tspvanilla extract (for filling)
1/4 tspkosher salt (for filling)
1 cupold-fashioned rolled oats(rolled, not instant, never instant)
3/4 cupall-purpose flour (for topping)
3/4 cup, packedlight brown sugar (for topping)
1 tspground cinnamon (for topping)
1/2 tspkosher salt (for topping)
1/2 cuppecans, roughly chopped
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks)unsalted butter, cold and cubed
as neededvanilla ice cream (for serving)

Steps

1
Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish (or 2.5-quart equivalent).
2
Peel, core, and slice the apples about 1/2-inch thick. Don't go too thin — you want them to hold their shape.
3
In a large bowl, toss apples with granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt until evenly coated. Transfer to the buttered dish and spread evenly.
4
Make the topping: whisk oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and pecans in a bowl.
5
Add the cold cubed butter and work it in with your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture forms big crumbly clumps the size of peas and chickpeas. Do not overwork it.
6
Scatter the topping evenly over the apples in big clumps. Do not press down.
7
Bake 40-50 minutes, until the topping is deep golden brown and the filling is bubbling thickly around the edges. If the top browns too fast, tent loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes.
8
Let rest 15 minutes before serving — the filling thickens as it cools. Serve warm with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.

One more thing

Eat it warm. WARM. Not hot, not cold, WARM — with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting into the topping like a glacier discovering its purpose. Servers in restaurants recognize me, they bring out the dessert tray, I wave it away, I tell them I've already made better at home. They nod. They KNOW. The salt, the cold butter, the pecans, the refusal to mess around — that's the whole game. Other crisps are a soft beige apology. This one is a STATEMENT. Tremendous.