After a couple of cool weeks, the last few days have brought a bit of Indian summer to late September. Not exactly the perfect weather for apple crisp but is there ever really a bad time to whip up this dessert? It’s a great way to use up some apples when you need a quick fall dessert but don’t feel like making pie dough. It uses mostly pantry ingredients, is very adaptable, tastes great, and comes together quickly enough for a weekday dinner treat. What’s not to like.

Here is my quick, simple, tasty 7-ingredient apple crisp recipe:

You can easily adapt this recipe to use a different crumble topping, different apples, different spices. The goal is to make a quick and simple dessert that looks and tastes like you spent a lot more time on it.

You can use all the same apples but I like to include different varieties to give the final crumble some texture. For this batch I used a Granny Smith, an Envy, a Macintosh, and a Gala. Core, peel, and chop.

Mix up the dry ingredients. Either type of brown sugar will work well. I like to use extra thick rolled oats, but regular or quick oats also work fine depending  your preference. I also like to use a mix of flours and throw in some almond meal if I have it both for texture and flavor. Gluten free flour blends will also work just fine. Cut in some cold butter and sprinkle on top of the apples.

Bake for about 30 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your topping, and serve warm with ice cream.

Quick & Easy 7-Ingredient Apple Crisp

Ingredients

• 4 - 5 apples, cored, peeled and chopped
• ¾ cup (light or dark) brown sugar
• ½ cup flour blend
• ½ cup oats (rolled or quick)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg or other spices
• ⅓ cup cold butter

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly spray or grease an 8x8 pan.
2. Core apples, and peel and slice them.
3. Arrange apple slices evenly on the bottom of the pan.
4. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, oats, cinnamon and nutmeg.
5. With a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs.
6. Sprinkle the topping over the apples.
7. Bake for 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a fork.
8. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream!