Salted Caramel Apple Crisp (Easy Fall Dessert!)
This salted caramel apple crisp is loaded with tender cinnamon apples, ribbons of gooey caramel and a buttery brown sugar oat topping that gets gloriously golden and crunchy in the oven. It’s basically apple pie for people who don’t have the time or emotional bandwidth to negotiate with pie crust. Add vanilla ice cream while it’s still warm and suddenly fall seems like an excellent idea.
Ingredients
- 6 medium apples, peeled, cored and sliced about 1/4-inch thick
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup salted caramel sauce, plus more for serving
- 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into small cubes
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans, optional
- Flaky sea salt, for finishing
- Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease a 9×9-inch baking dish.
- Add the sliced apples to a large bowl and toss with the lemon juice.
- Add the granulated sugar, 2 tbsp flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Toss until the apples are evenly coated.
- Spread the apples evenly in the prepared baking dish.
- Drizzle 1/2 cup salted caramel sauce over the apples. Don’t worry about making it perfectly even. Little caramel pockets are not a defect.
- In a separate bowl, combine the oats, 3/4 cup flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt.
- Add the cold butter and work it into the oat mixture with your fingers or a pastry cutter until you have lots of buttery crumbs and clumps. Clumps are important. Nobody has ever gotten excited about apple crisp dust.
- Stir in the pecans, if using.
- Scatter the topping evenly over the apples. Don’t pack it down. We want craggy, crispy little mountains of brown sugar and butter.
- Bake for 40â50 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the caramel apple filling is bubbling around the edges.
- Let the crisp rest for at least 15 minutes before serving so the filling can thicken slightly instead of immediately escaping across your plate.
- Spoon into bowls while still warm, add vanilla ice cream and drizzle with additional salted caramel sauce.
- Finish with a tiny pinch of flaky sea salt.
Tips & Variations
- Use the right apples: Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Pink Lady and Braeburn all hold up well in the oven. Using two varieties gives you an especially good mix of sweet, tart and apple-y flavor.
- Slice the apples evenly: They don’t need to pass a geometry exam, but keeping them around the same thickness helps them cook at the same rate.
- Don’t skip the flour in the filling: Apples release plenty of juice as they bake. The flour thickens those juices so you get gooey caramel apple filling instead of cinnamon apple soup.
- Keep the butter cold: Cold butter creates those crispy, crumbly pockets in the topping. Soft or melted butter gives you a flatter, more uniform topping, and uniformity is not what we’re chasing here.
- Don’t pulverize the topping: Stop mixing when you’ve got everything from sandy crumbs to marble-sized clumps. Those big buttery clumps become the best part.
- Make it extra caramel-y: Add another drizzle of caramel halfway through the apple layer before adding the topping. We’ve already put caramel inside an apple crisp. Restraint has left the building.
- Add bourbon: Stir 1â2 tbsp bourbon into the apples before assembling. Bourbon, brown sugar, apples and caramel get along suspiciously well.
- Make it extra crunchy: Add the pecans or chopped walnuts to the topping. Toasting them first makes it even better if you have an extra five minutes and an unexpected burst of ambition.
- No salted caramel?: Regular caramel sauce works perfectly. Just finish the crisp with flaky sea salt and you’ve successfully manufactured your own salted caramel situation.
- Reheat leftovers: Warm individual servings briefly in the microwave or put the baking dish back into a 325°F oven until heated through. And yes, adding another scoop of ice cream to leftovers is still legally considered reheating.
If youâre craving easy make-ahead pudding desserts, check out this fast and easy Banana Cream Poke Cake, this shockingly decadent Gooey Quadruple Chocolate Oreo Cake, these Chocolate Strawberry Trifle Cups and of courseâŚthe famous Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding Recipe layers of vanilla wafers, barely ripe bananas, and cloud-like whipped pudding that chills into something creamy, nostalgic, and totally addictive!
If youâre in the mood for something rich and creamy (but still ridiculously easy), this Easy Chocolate Mousse is always an excellent idea!
If you love easy desserts, donât miss this collection of epic cake mix desserts: Cake Mix Desserts (Easy Recipes That Taste Homemade).
