Baked-Apple Mini-Crisps
If you love baked apples and apple crisp, why not combine them? Topping apple halves with streusel and baking them in sweet cider gives you the best of two classic desserts.
Baked-Apple Mini-Crisps
Photo Credit : Carl TremblayI love baked apples and I love apple crisp, so I thought, why not combine them? Topping apple halves with streusel and baking them in sweet cider gives you the best of two classic desserts. If you love apple crisp but dislike all the peeling and slicing, these baked-apple mini-crisps are a delicious cheat. They also make a great breakfast dish.
I’ve baked many different apple varieties, and I like Pink Lady and Honeycrisp best because they have great flavor and keep their shape–and the skin retains its lovely pink hue even when baked.
Yield:
8 servingsFor the topping:
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup pecan halves, chopped fine
1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
4 tablespoons salted butter, melted
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 375° and set a rack to the middle position.
Make the topping: In a medium-size bowl, stir together the flour, brown sugar, pecans, and salt. Drizzle in the butter, and stir until the mixture clumps together and forms a streusel. Refrigerate while you prepare the apples.
For the apples:
Ingredients
8 large baking apples, such as Pink Lady or Honeycrisp, halved crosswise
1/4 cup seedless raspberry or red-currant jam
1-1/2 cups sweet apple cider
Garnish: vanilla ice cream
Instructions
Using a spoon or melon baller, scoop out the core and seeds from each apple half, leaving at least 1/4 inch of flesh at the bottom. Arrange the halves in a 9×13-inch baking pan, and spread the top of each with about a teaspoon of the jam (this will help the streusel stick).
Remove the streusel from the refrigerator and spoon about 3 tablespoons onto each of the apple halves, pressing down to adhere. Pour the cider into the bottom of the pan and transfer to the oven. Begin testing the apples for doneness after 30 minutes by poking with a knife; then check every 5 minutes until tender and yielding.
Serve warm with ice cream and some of the cider from the pan spooned over the top.
