Healthified Apple Crisp

Apple crisp is a classic fall dish that many of us enjoy. It seems fairly harmless, apples, some oats, maybe a bit of butter, but when I decided to make it on Saturday night, I found that most of the recipes that I had could be improved on health-wise. I started off with a fairly basic recipe from Cooks.com and then made a few changes to make it my own. Apple crisp is my kind of baking. Unlike with a cake, if you leave something out of apple crisp you likely won’t destroy it.

I started with about 4 cups of chopped apples. The recipe said 3 cups, but I know how much apples shrink, and I wanted apples! The recipe called for 1/4 cup of white sugar and 3 TBSP of flour to mix with the 3 cups of apples. I left out the flour altogether, and instead of the white sugar, sprinkled just a bit of brown sugar on to the apples, added a bit more than the 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and grated on a dusting of fresh Grenadine nutmeg. Who needs extra sugar when you have so much flavorful spice? When I was finished with the apples they looked like this:

The recipe called for 1/4 cup of butter, and I halved that to cut the fat a bit. I am not one to shy away from using real butter, but I am sure a vegan substitute could be used as well. The recipe called for 1/2 cup rolled oats, but since I knew this would be part of my breakfast, I threw in a whole cup of Trader Joe’s multi-grain hot cereal, mixed again with some brown sugar, cinnamon, and the 1/8 cup of butter, chopped into teeny pieces.  

I covered the apples with the oats mixture and popped it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. The recipe said 35 minutes at 375, but I actually like the apples in my apple desserts to have a little bit of bite to them.

The end result was perfect. I really do not think it was missing anything. The apples were soft and flavorful with all of the fall-flavored spices that I added, and the oats were nice and crunchy. Topped with 0% Fage, this was my breakfast Sunday morning and will likely be my dessert tonight. Looking back, I really didn’t follow the recipe at all, but I usually don’t, and I ended up with great results.

Are you a baker or do you prefer to wing it like I do? My husband is an amazing by the recipe cook. And then there’s me. . . 🙂