When we were on our family vacation earlier this month, my husband decided he wanted to go apple picking. We crossed the WI-IL border and picked some apples in Harvard, IL at The Royal Oak Farm Orchard.

We had a great time picking a peck and a half of the three varieties that were available at the time of our visit: Jonamac, Macintosh, and Gala.

When my mom and I went apple picking last year, Firecracker was about 15 months old. He had just as much fun this year, but with a little (okay, a lot) of extra confidence on his feet for running around.

Firecracker has always struggled with eating raw apples, yet he loves the flavor of them. Unless an apple slice is covered in Nutella, he’ll simply gnaw away at the fruit and never swallow it. There’s always a pile of apple bits on the coffee table.

Treat, on the other hand, has never struggled with apples and they’re one of his absolute favorite foods. He happily ate close to an entire apple while we were picking. And with only two bottom teeth! I was surprised, though I guess I should’ve have been, that he managed to hold on to the apple the entire time!

With our fall bounty in tow we headed to the kitchen. I put some apple in my Choco-flower Bundt Cake and into some meatballs we enjoyed on game day (recipe to come later this week). Our big apple feature dish, though, was a crisp.

My mom and I combined a few different recipes and methodologies to develop the resulting addicting dessert (/breakfast).

There aren’t a lot of pie recipes here on Sew You Think You Can Cook because I really don’t care for warm fruits. As I’m in the minority there I had no problem lending some apples to the cause of a crisp.

Um. Yeah. This crisp is one of my new all time favorites! I could have eaten the entire dish on my own. But, I had to share. A dollop of whipped cream, sprinkle of cinnamon, and drizzle of honey made this dessert a home run. Naturally, we bought some honey from the orchard and it’s beautiful apple-y floral quality was a perfect complement to the crisp.

Of course, you could serve it with ice cream. I’m contemplating making a honey ice cream to serve alongside this Apple Oat Crisp for Thanksgiving this year.

Apple Oat Crisp

Ingredients:

• 4-5 apples, peeled, cored, sliced
• 2 tbsp apple cider
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 C + 1 tbsp flour, divided use
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, divided use
• 1 C oats
• 1 C brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 stick butter, melted

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Toss apples with cider, sugar, 1 tbsp flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Place in a small casserole dish.
3. In a bowl, whisk together 1 C flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, the oats, brown sugar, and baking powder. Mix in the melted butter until combined and crumbly. Top the apples.
4. Bake 30 – 35 minutes until golden, bubbly, and the apples are tender.