Thursday, December 18, 2014

NEW RECIPE Dessert Alert - Cranberry Apple Crisp

Today I am excited to be doing another guest post for Honeyville and sharing my new dessert recipe for Cranberry Apple Crisp. It's so easy to make and it doesn't use a lot of ingredients or require any special pans to make. You're likely to already have most everything you need to make this. While testing this recipe out, I enjoyed testing it and eating it in a variety of "scenarios." I ate it warm; I ate it cold...I ate it topped with whipped cream, I ate it topped with sugar free vanilla coconut milk ice cream...and I must confess, on a couple of occasions, I just ate it with a spoon, right out of the casserole dish! LOL You know what all these different scenarios had in common? They were ALL good. The bottom line was that I enjoyed eating it no matter how I served or ate it!

The filling is simple and requires only 2 ingredients. And we all know that the best part about any kind of fruit crisp is the actual "crisp" part...the crumbly topping. The topping on my Cranberry Apple Crisp was amazing made with blanched almond flour, butter, spices, and walnuts. Of course, you know I'll use just about any excuse to find ways to eat and enjoy cranberries. Before this, I don't believe I've ever put cranberries in a crisp before...and now that I have, I don't think I'll ever make another fruit crisp without them. I hope you enjoy this festive dessert. It's absolutely perfect for fall, winter, and holiday desserts. It can be served rustic or family style in bowls or it can be served more elegantly in pretty dessert cups or martini glasses like I did. Check out the photos and recipe below. Enjoy!











Cranberry Apple Crisp

Serves 8

Ingredients:

1 large Granny Smith apple, cored and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1 large Honeycrisp apple (or other sweet crisp apple), cored and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
1-1/2 cups no added sugar Cranberry Orange Sauce (or whole berry cranberry sauce)
1/3 cup Swerve sweetener (or other granular sweetener equivalent to 1/3 cup sugar)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons diced chilled butter, plus extra to grease baking dish
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease a 2-1/2 quart oblong or rectangular casserole or baking dish.

In a medium bowl, combine sliced apples and cranberry sauce. Transfer to greased baking dish.

In a separate bowl, whisk almond flour, granular sweetener, cinnamon and salt together. Add diced chilled butter and cut in with a pastry/dough cutter until mixture is crumbly. Stir in chopped walnuts. Sprinkle evenly over apple mixture. Bake until apples are tender and topping is golden brown, about 40 to 45 minutes. The topping crisps up as it cools. Serve warm topped with sugar free vanilla ice cream if desired.

*Notes: If preferred, apples may be peeled. Slice apples more thinly if you prefer them more tender and soft. A food processor can be used instead of a pastry/dough cutter to cut the butter into the topping mixture by briefly pulsing the ingredients together just until crumbly.

*Nutrition Information: Each serving contains approximately 6.5 net grams carbohydrates (total carbohydrates minus fiber) and 4 grams sugar.



           

10 comments:

CyberSis said...

Hi GGC,

You weren't kidding on Wed. that we're going to want to make this!
I don't remember the last time I had apple crisp. Thank you for transforming another beloved old favorite into a healthy treat!

I keep a container of cranberry sauce in the fridge at all times. I have everything else except the apples ... but that's easy to remedy! :-)

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi CyberSis,

I hope you enjoy it. That was the first apple crisp I've had in a long time! As a child, that was one of my favorite "school lunch" desserts! Of course, they didn't put cranberries in the school's version. Hope you enjoy it! :-)

CyberSis said...

Hi GGC,

Having a little computer trouble so I apologize if this is a double-post.

Just wanted to let you know that we had this yesterday for dessert and it was outstanding! It passed the Hubby Test with flying colors, too! :-)

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi CyberSis,

Yay! So happy you enjoyed it...and passing the hubby test is one of the highest honors of all!

So glad you both enjoyed it! :-)

BarbP said...

Oh my, this is SOOO wonderful! First apple crisp in a few years after going LC/GF. Although I was sad to use up all of the cranberry sauce - will have to start keeping that stuff on hand! How is it nobody ever thought of mixing cranberry sauce with apples before? It is a match made in heaven.

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi BarbP,

So happy you enjoyed it! :-)

Anonymous said...

Do you think this would work with peaches?

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi Anonymous,

The topping should work fine. The only difference will be that apples are full of pectin as is the thickened cranberry sauce (pectin is a natural thickener). Peaches release more juice. You might want to stir in 2 or 3 teaspoon ground chia seed and a bit of sweetener into the peaches before placing them in the dish. That should help thicken it up a bit. Hope that helps. :-)

CyberSis said...

Hi GGC,

Once upon a time .....

You won't believe what I did when I made this tonight ..... well, you probably *will* believe it because this isn't the first time I've done this sort of thing! I didn't have cranberry sauce on hand, so I started off by making that. While it was cooling a bit I assembled and prepped the other ingredients. I was interrupted a couple of times, but, hey, I had everything well in hand, you know. I sliced the apples and wondered why they seemed kind of "skimpy." But no matter, I just sliced some extra, filled up the baking dish, spread on the topping and popped it into the oven. About halfway through the baking time I caught sight of the *Cranberry Sauce* sitting there big as life and staring up at me! Yikes! How in the world could I have done THAT! Well, it's really not that hard to imagine ... (sigh)

There IS a happy ending to this tale. It was too late to do anything about the situation, so I decided to place a dollop of cranberry sauce on our dessert plates and serve the apple crisp on top. It worked out great and it was absolutely delicious!

All's well that ends well.
The End. :-)

Gourmet Girl Cooks said...

Hi CyberSis,

Too funny! Those pesky interruptions will get you every time!!! So happy that you still managed to save the day!!! I will file that rescue tip away for "one day" that I might need to use your little trick too! :-)