This Old Fashioned Apple Crisp recipe is so easy, delicious, and impossible to resist! Sliced apples are coated in brown sugar and cinnamon covered with a buttery, cinnamon spiced brown sugar and old fashion rolled oat crumble. A wonderfully fragrant dessert to celebrate Autumn!
I’m hard pressed to think of a dessert that is so unapologetically Autumn as “The Apple Crisp”. In my humble opinion, I would say that the Apple Crisp even reigns supreme when compared to its seasonally abundant apple dessert cousin “Apple Pie”! Hey, we all have our preferences!
This EASY & OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP RECIPE is brimming with juicy, freshly picked New England orchard apples coated with melted cinnamon and brown sugar with a hint of fresh lemon juice to balance sweetness. Then topped with a crispy crunchy oatmeal crumble made of butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
While freshly baking in your oven, it’s irresistible apple cinnamon fragrance will have you drooling before you even take your first bite!
EASY & OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP INGREDIENTS:
- Granny Smith Apples
- Butter
- All-purpose flour
- Old fashioned rolled oats
- Light brown sugar
- Baking powder
- Cinnamon
- Salt
- Lemon
- Vanilla extract
WHAT ARE BEST APPLES FOR EASY & OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP?
When it comes to finding the best apple for your apple crisp, go with a crisp, tart variety that stands up well to baking. Your apples should also be room temperature to ensure even baking.
These apple varieties are known as the BEST for BAKING:
- Granny Smith
- Jonagold
- Honeycrisp
- Braeburn
- Mutsu or “Crispin”
- Cortland
HOW TO MAKE EASY & OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP?
First, assemble crumble topping in a medium size bowl. Combine the crumb topping ingredients and work with hands to throughly incorporate. Use your fingers to break butter apart and squeezing back together. Crumble should look like wet sand, not powdery like flour.
Now assemble the apple mixture by combining peeled and sliced apples, melted butter, flour, lemon juice, vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
Next, choose a baking dish size 8×8 or similar and pour apple mixture in and spread into an even layer.
Crumble the oatmeal butter topping evenly over the apples and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a glaze of bubbling sauce has formed around edges of baking dish and golden brown top is set.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
WHAT TO SERVE EASY & OLD FASHIONED APPLE CRISP WITH?
Apple Crisps are most commonly served “A la Mode” with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Although you could get creative with the flavor and switch out the traditional vanilla ice cream for cinnamon, salted caramel, apple, pistachio, or even pumpkin pie!
Alternatively, whipped cream or warm caramel sauce would be fantastic!
But, I love apple crisp so much that I prefer NO TOPPING at all! To me, Old Fashioned Apple Crisp is just perfect the way it is!
Check out some of my other dessert recipes:
LUSCIOUS LEMON BARS
HAZELNUT AND MILK CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
STRAWBERRY AND JAM OLIVE OIL CORNMEAL CAKE
Easy & Old Fashioned Apple Crisp
Ingredients
Apple Filling
- 6 large apples peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp butter melted
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of salt
Crumble Topping
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter cut into small pieces
- ½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 °F.
For the topping:
- In a medium size bowl combine the crumb topping ingredients Work with hands to throughly incorporate. Using fingers to break butter apart and squeezing back together. Crumble should look like wet sand, not flour.
For the Apple Filling:
- In a small bowl, combine apples, melted butter and flour lemon juice, vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt.
- Pour apple mixture into an 8×8-inch baking dish and spread into an even layer.
- Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over the apples.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown and top is set and bubbly glaze is visible around the edges.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
I can’t tell you how much I loved this recipe. From the get go I knew I had to make it. Why? Because right away I saw that you used Granny Smith apples. Game changer. I don’t think people realize the power of the granny Smith apple in recipes. They provide the tightness you need, but mostly the firmness of keeping the recipe from getting soft and mushy. I use Granny Smith in all of my recipes that have apples. Secondly, I loved that the ingredients of the filling created a bit of a caramel sauce. And I loved the balance and ratio of the topping to the filling. The first night I had it hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The second night I had it with whip cream. Both delicious I highly recommend this recipe, give it a try.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and helpful review! I can see your passion and experience come through in the feedback, and I HOPE you try (and love) more recipes from SALT SUGAR SPICE!