The Pioneer Woman Tasty Kitchen
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Apple Crisp with Brown Butter, Vanilla Bean & Bourbon

5.00 Mitt(s) 2 Rating(s)2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 52 votes, average: 5.00 out of 52 votes, average: 5.00 out of 52 votes, average: 5.00 out of 52 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5

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Level: Easy

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Description

Literally the best apple crisp you will ever have. Perfect served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

  • FOR THE TOPPING:
  • 1 cup All-purpose Flour
  • 1 cup Old Fashioned Oats
  • 1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
  • ½ cups Chopped Almonds
  • ½ cups Unsalted Butter, Softened And Cut Into Pieces
  • FOR THE FILLING:
  • ½ cups Unsalted Butter
  • 1  Vanilla Bean, Split Lenghwise
  • 6  Medium-sized Granny Smith Apples, Peeled, Cored, And Very Thinly Sliced
  • ⅓ cups Dark Brown Sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
  • 1 Tablespoon Bourbon

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 F. Generously grease an 8×8 baking pan.

For the topping: Combine the flour, oats, brown sugar and almonds in a large bowl until well-combined. Add in the pieces of butter and use your hands to squeeze and combine until the mixture becomes crumbly and resembles wet sand. Alternatively, you can cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, or place all of the topping ingredients in a food processor and pulse until just blended. My favorite method is to use my hands, as I believe you get the best crumbly topping that way. Once finished, place topping in the fridge and begin making the apple filling.

For the filling: Place butter and seeds from the vanilla bean (just use a sharp knife and scrape the small seeds out of the pod halves) in a medium saucepan, and turn heat on medium. After a couple of minutes the butter will begin to crackle and foam—make sure you whisk consistently during this process! After another minute or two, you will notice the butter turning a slight brown (caramel) color on the bottom of the saucepan. Continue to whisk and remove pan from heat as soon as the butter begins to give off a nutty aroma. Immediately transfer the butter to a bowl to prevent it from burning. Set aside to cool for a few minutes.

While the butter is cooling, place apples, 1/3 cup brown sugar, cinnamon and bourbon in a large bowl and toss to combine. Add the brown butter to this apple mixture and toss again to combine.

Take a heaping ½ cup of the topping mixture and toss with the apple mixture. Place the apple mixture in the prepared pan and sprinkle evenly with the remaining topping. It may seem like a lot of topping, but the apples will cook down and the topping will provide an excellent crunchy exterior.

Put the pan on a baking sheet (just in case the filling bubbles over!) and bake in the preheated oven for 55-60 minutes, or until topping is golden brown and filling is bubbling. Remove from oven and cool 10 minutes on wire rack. Serve warm with vanilla bean ice cream.

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2 Reviews

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JamminJan on 10.2.2017

This recipe is over the top! Don’t be intimidated thinking it’s too much work, it’s very easy! I didn’t have a vanilla bean so simply added 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract to the cooled butter. Also, found that the 8X8 baking dish I was going to use was too small. Baked it in an 11 X 7 pan instead which was perfect. Will make this my “go to” recipe for this crisp.

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Jennifer Martinez on 11.17.2015

Fabulous apple crisp – I substituted vanilla bean paste for the vanilla bean and it turned out wonderfully. Will definitely make this again.

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