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History
in the Baking
America can trace its love affair with apple crisp back
to colonial days - but this old favorite continues to change
with the times.
Text and recipes by Jean Kressy, Photography by Randy Mayor
- Cooking Light, October 2000
Cranberry-Orange
Apple Crisp
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For me, apple
crisps are tradition of the personal kind. Thirty years
ago, my mother-in-law gave me a handwritten recipe -
not her own, but crafted by my husband when he was a
little boy. Apple crisp was one of his favorite childhood
desserts, and he wanted to be sure everyone knew how
to make it. And he knew whereof he cooked: With four
basic ingredients - flour, sugar, butter, and apples
- Michael's recipe has been the blueprint of all the
crisps I have made ever since. And there have been hundreds.
Crisps
(or crumbles, as they're sometimes called) and their
cousin the cobbler are among America's oldest fruit
desserts. They became popular back in colonial days,
when brick ovens offered folks a new alternative to
the open fires over which the crisps' ancestors, plainly
named grunts and slumps, were steamed. Ovens allowed
cooks to substitute pastry crusts and sweet, crumbly
toppings for the soft dumpling that grunted or slumped
as they cooked.
One
of the best things about crisps is that even though
the fundamentals never really change, the adaptations
and variations can be great fun. Right down to the choice
of apples. When I started baking crisps, I swore by
Cortlands because they held their shape nicely and I
liked the way they tasted. Macouns, and East Coast variety,
were a strong second, although Granny Smiths would do
in a pinch.
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McIntoshes,
I foolishly believed, were too soft and would dissolve into
applesauce as they baked. But one year I was ready for crisps
before the apple season was fully underway, which meant I
had to settle for Jersey Macs, an early variety of the McIntosh.
They turned out to be terrific. Using fresh, high-quality
fruit is more important than the variety chosen (we've used
Granny Smiths and Rome apples). If an apple is stale or mealy,
no amount of culinary magic can bring it back to life.
What you add to the
apples gives you lots of room for creativity. I have sprinkled
the fruit with everything from cider to 20-year-old bourbon,
covered it with ingredients ranging from sliced bananas to
strawberry-rhubarb jam, and mixed it with sweet spices and
dried fruit. Many of these toppings can be made ahead and
refrigerated overnight, and none has added even a gram of
fat.
My rule has always
been to let the fruit do the talking. Sometimes the apples
are so delicious that I don't want anything else next to them
but crumbs. Here you need some fat for binding as well as
flavor. Nice, big crumbs put the crisp in a crisp and depend
on butter, not sugar. I think they also depend on using your
hands. You can certainly make crumbs in a food processor or
mixer - or with a pastry blender - but using my fingers gives
me better control. I can feel the progression as I work the
butter into the dry ingredients and the mixture goes from
floury to small bits to larger crumbs. These recipes specify
cold butter, but as long as the butter isn't too soft, its
temperature isn't really all that important.
At this very moment,
there's a crisp baking in my oven - one with apples, pears,
and fresh ginger. I'm using a pie plate to cook it in, but
baking pans, individual ramekins, and casserole dishes all
work if they're the right size (for these recipes, that's
enough to hold 6 cups). I've found a few filberts and caramel
sauce for the topping. I admit it's a spur-of-the-moment combination.
But I know it will be fine, because if there's one thing I've
learned after all these years - as did my husband, hi mother,
and no doubt all those early colonists and their descendants
- it's that there's no such thing as a bad apple crisp.
_________________________
Contributor
Jean Kressy also writes frequently for The Boston Globe.
NEXT : Maple-Walnut Apple
Crisp, Cranberry-Orange Apple Crisp and more!
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