How can it be the end of October already? Fall is my absolute favorite baking season, and I feel like I have hardly scratched the service. I cannot wait to get to the farmer’s market this weekend, and catch up on some much needed kitchen time. I love travelling to new places, but boy it is good to get home. I am in between cities right now, and I swear I could write an entire blog post about the food I have experienced this week – but it is apple time…
My husband has really been trying to stay away from dairy, and I have been encouraging it. It is pretty easy to cook without dairy – and if I am making something with cheese, I just put cheese on part of it. Therefore everyone is happy. Baking is a different story though, and I am slowly learning what I can use to substitute with. Milk and buttermilk is pretty easy – I can almost always use coconut milk, and the final product actually tastes even better – butter is a different story though.
My neighbors brought us a bunch of apples from their trees on the peninsula – and they were calling me to bake something with. I instantly thought of a crisp – and I had to make it dairy free. I found this simple recipe on Bon Appetit online but was on a quest. I found these earth balance sticks – and decided to give it a try. They are not a great substitute for butter when making a cake – oil is much better for that, but I thought for a crisp they might just do the trick. I was right – this crisp was amazing. I shared it with my neighbors, and everyone agreed. You would never have known that this was made without butter. The topping was extremely simple – and gave it a nice sweet crisp bite – if you want, you could definitely add some oats for additional texture but I didn’t think it needed it.
OK – 8 days left in October and I am going to make the most of it…stay tuned!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 3 1/2 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled Earth Balance sticks, cut into pieces (or butter, if you can eat dairy)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 450°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in large bowl. Add apples and lemon juice, and toss to coat. Transfer apple mixture to prepared dish.
Combine flour, 1 cup sugar and Earth Balance in a medium bowl. Using pastry blender or fingertips, blend ingredients until coarse meal forms. Spread flour mixture evenly over apples.
Bake crisp 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake crisp until apples are tender and topping is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.
For a printer-friendly version of this recipe, please click here: Dairy-Free Apple Crisp
First Look, Then Cook 