Thursday, January 21, 2010

Apple Crisp Desert: The Story of the American Classic

By Milly Hills

Nothing asserts fall like apple crisp, the warm cinnamon scent and sweet apples as much a part of autumn for many people as red leaves and cold weather. Or, presumably, it reminds you of high school cafe, where a really sad and limp version of apple crisp is a standard staple of lunchtime.

Apple crisp, or apple crumble if you are from the UK, appears like the kind of old time dish that's been handed down for generations. You can pretty simply imagine the pilgrims eating it at the very first Thanksgiving. Despite this antique feel, apple crisp has a surprisingly short history.

Apple crisp doesn't make an appearance in cookery books until 1924, so its creation potentially only goes back a few decades before. This is a record of a bit more than a century, making it a fairly fresh addition to the North American menu. The dish became swiftly and immensely popular with one or two years of appearing in cookery books, as papers and recommendation by friends spread the recipe.

The advantage of apple crisp is that it's significantly better to make than apple pie, another fall favorite. Instead of needing to be able to create a crust for a pie and then get it baked right a surprisingly hard task, apple crisp only needs that you be ready to layer the ingredients in an acceptable pan.

At its most basic, apple crisp is just a dessert composed from baked apple covered by a crisp crust. Sometimes, the crust is also covered in brown sugar and cinnamon to add an extra level of sweetness to the top, in addition to the brown sugar that's typical with the baked apples.

More specifically, you are going to find cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats, brown sugar, ginger, and / or nutmeg. There are about as many different recipes for apple crisp as there are individuals that eat it, and even veteran bakers infrequently make it a exact same way twice.

There are lots of variants possible , from the choice of sugars to using oats to including other fruits. Peaches are a fairly common addition to apple crisp, and it is not at all unusual to find things like raspberry or blueberry crisp on the menu.

Rhubarb is a popular ingredient, as it provides a tart taste that contrasts with the sweetness of the pie. For the same reason, you want to consider your selection of apples, the most elementary ingredient in the dish, when you decide to make your apple crisp.

An apple, of course, isn't just an apple. They come in lots of kinds, with a huge range of sizes, tastes and textures. Apples can range from reasonably sour to terribly sweet, and making sure to get the right sweetness is critical so that you'll know how much sugar to use.

Similarly, apples can have a range of textures, from crisp to almost floury, and it's imperative to grasp the feel of your apples before baked them so that you get an apple crisp that basically tastes good and has a nice mouth feel.

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