One of my all time favorite desserts - Apple Crisp

So I just love the idea of baked warm fruit and some sort of crust or crunch to go along with it.  It's unfortuante that most of my family doesn't agree, so I don't get to make as many of these recipes as I like (since I end up eating it all or at least most of it).  But this time, hubs ate a good bit, and he said he even enjoyed it.  I love Apple Crisps and with a fresh peck (or 3) of apples, I was going to make my apple crisp.  I think it was one of the first things I made after we went apple picking.  My recipe is modified from the Barefoot Contessa recipe.

Ingredients

• 6-8 large apples - I used Mutsu apples which are good baking apples found in GA, granny smith or Macintosh will do great
• Grated zest of 1 lemon
• Juice from one lemon
• 1/2 cup sucanut or organic fine sugar 
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For topping

• 1 cup flour - I used white
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup oatmeal
• 1/2 pound cold Earth Balance, diced (can use butter as well)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9 by 13 baking dish.
Peel, core, and cut the apples into large wedges. Combine the apples with the zests, juices, sugar, and spices. Pour into the dish.
To make the topping, combine the flour, sugars, salt, oatmeal, and cold Earth Balance in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas. Scatter evenly over the apples.
Place the crisp on a baking sheet and bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the apples are bubbly. If the top has not browned (mine didn't), turn to broil and broil for 2-4 minutes.  Serve warm.

The topping going into the mixer

After a few minutes of mixing

My apples mixture in the baking dish

The topping over the apples

After baking, so good with some vanilla ice cream

Now, this does make an awful lot of crumbling topping, so if you won't want a lot of topping, then you might want to reduce your flour and oatmeal measurements.  But if you like the crumbly topping as much as I do, then it's just up your ally.  A must try!