I have been on a huge apple kick lately. Since apples are good for you, I don’t feel one ounce of guilt for indulging my craving. In fact, I should be praised for promoting such healthy fare on my blog. Of course, I did stuff my face full of apple crisp. And salted caramel sauce too. Maybe I feel a tad guilty. Or not.
My mom’s recipe was the launch pad for my version. She uses tapioca, which I did not have on hand so I made a few changes. It still turned out delicious, but I thought to myself – “Tanya, how can you make it out of this world?” The answer—top it with salted caramel sauce.
I love, love, love caramel. I am less enthralled with making it. It’s a little fussy to make so I hewed and hawed over making it and finally dug deep and just did it after I found a tasty looking recipe on Blissful Domesticity. It’s really, really good and less scary to make than I anticipated.
However, I won’t judge if you opt not to make it. Another option would be to make my super easy caramel sauce (which doesn’t use a candy thermometer) or pick up a jar of caramel sauce at the store. Because a warm piece of apple crisp demands to be topped with vanilla ice cream and covered with caramel sauce. Really, it does.
Apple Crisp with Salted Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 5 cups apples, peeled, cored and chopped (I used Granny Smith)
- 3/4 cup sugar (less if your apples are sweet)
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 Tbsp flour
- 1 tsp vanilla
Topping Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
Salted Caramel Sauce
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 tsp pink himalayan salt (or fleur de sel, grey salt, sea salt or kosher salt)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 8×8 baking dish. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the sugar, cinnamon and flour. Stir in apples. Add the lemon juice and vanilla and stir.
- Pour apple mixture into the baking dish. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl combine topping ingredients until they resemble coarse crumbs. My mom uses a mixer but I just used a spoon and then my hands.
- Sprinkle topping over apples. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until apples are tender.
- For the Salted Caramel Sauce: In a 2-quart saucepan, pour in water. Pour sugar into the middle of the pan and DO NOT STIR. Cover and cook over high heat until it comes to a boil.
- Once the sugar water is boiling, stick a candy thermometer in it and continue to boil until it reaches 300 degrees and turns a pale amber.
- At 300 degrees, turn down the heat to medium and boil until it reaches 350 degrees and is a rich amber hue. Remove from heat.
- In the meantime, pour cream into a small saucepan and warm over medium heat.
- Add a little of the warm cream to the hot sugar, about a quarter of it. It will bubble wildly so be careful.
- Add the rest of the cream slowly, and when the bubbling subsides, whisk gently to incorporate.
- Add butter and salt and whisk until everything is combined.
Enjoy!
Tanya