American Classic

Apple Crisp: Secret History Of An American Classic

Nothing says fall quite like apple crisp, the warm cinnamon scent and sweet apples as much a part of autumn for many people as red leaves and cold weather. Or, possibly, it reminds you of high school cafeterias, where a very sad and soggy version of apple crisp is a common staple of lunchtime.

Apple crisp, or apple crumble if you're from the UK, seems like the sort of old time dish that's been handed down for generations. You can pretty easily imagine the pilgrims eating it at the very first Thanksgiving. Despite this antique feel, apple crisp has a surprisingly short history.

Apple crisp doesn't make an appearance in cookbooks until 1924, so its creation probably only goes back a few decades before. This is a history of a little more than a century, making it a fairly recent addition to the American menu. The dish became rapidly and immensely popular with a few years of appearing in cookbooks, as newspapers and word of mouth spread the recipe.

The advantage of apple crisp is that it's substantially easier to make than apple pie, another fall favorite. Rather than needing to be able to create a crust for a pie and then get it baked just right, a surprisingly tricky task, apple crisp only requires that you be able to layer the ingredients in a suitable pan.

At its most basic, apple crisp is simply a dessert consisting of baked apple covered by a crisp crust. Generally, the crust is also covered in brown sugar and cinnamon to add an extra level of sweetness to the top, in addition to the brown sugar that's typical with the baked apples.

More specifically, you're going to find cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and frequently oats, brown sugar, ginger, and/or nutmeg. There are about as many different recipes for apple crisp as there are people that eat it, and even veteran bakers rarely make it the exact same way twice.

There are lots of variants possible, from the choice of sugars to using oats to including other fruits. Peaches are a fairly common addition to apple crisp, and it's not at all uncommon to find things like raspberry or blueberry crisp on the menu.

Rhubarb is a popular ingredient, because it provides a tart taste that contrasts with the sweetness of the pie. For the same reason, you need to consider your choice of apples, the most basic ingredient in the dish, when you decide to make your apple crisp.

An apple, of course, is not just an apple. They come in dozens of varieties, with a large range of sizes, tastes and textures. Apples can range from fairly sour to very sweet, and making sure to get the right sweetness is essential so that you'll know how much sugar to use.

Likewise, apples can have a variety of textures, from crisp to almost floury, and it's vital to know the texture of your apples before baked them so that you get an apple crisp that actually tastes good and has a pleasant mouth feel.

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Try my favorite
apple crisp recipe
here:
http://applecrisprecipe.org

American Classic

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