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By Sarah Condley

Columnist

It was time to visit to see Owen, our one-year-old grandson. We were going to take supper and dessert with us and I wanted to make an apple dessert because I had several apples in the refrigerator. I started looking through my stack of dessert recipes I’ve saved over the years, and while doing that, Brad came into the kitchen and suggested I make something with whole wheat flour due to his allergy to regular flour. So here we go again, I went to the computer to find some quick apple dessert that didn’t use white flour. After searching, I found a recipe for whole wheat apple crisp at the bonappetit.com website. Bon Appetit is a well-known magazine and I assumed their recipes would be good.

On the afternoon we were to go to our daughter’s house, I was working in the kitchen preparing the meal we’d take for our visit and it was time to start on dessert. After peeling and coring seven apples (5 Granny Smith and 2 Gala’s because that’s what I had), I sliced them directly into a two-quart buttered casserole dish. Once all the apples were in the dish, I poured two tablespoons of melted butter over the top, sprinkled 1/4 cup of brown sugar over the butter and tossed the apples to coat them with the butter/sugar mixture. The apples sat on the counter while I put the “crisp” part of the recipe together.

The remaining dry ingredients went into a medium size bowl and then I drizzled the remaining four tablespoons of melted butter over the top. After stirring in the butter, I thought the topping was a bit dry, so I added two more tablespoons of melted butter to the mixture. At that point, the crisp part of the dish clumped together when pressed together. After sprinkling the crumb mixture over the apples, the dish went into the oven and baked for 50 minutes. At the 50-minute mark, I looked in the oven and the crisp didn’t appear to be bubbling or juicy, so I let it bake another 10 minutes.

I removed the apple crisp from the oven, loaded the vehicle and we were on our way to Lexington.

After Granddaddy and Owen had their play date, it was time to sit down for supper. Right before sitting at the table, I put the dessert into the warm oven (it was turned off), hoping it would warm up a bit while we ate. Brad blessed the food and our time together and we dug in. After finishing our meal, everyone was ready to try the whole wheat apple crisp.

After scooping some of the crisp into a bowl, I topped mine off with some ice cream that we’d stopped and picked up at a small local grocery close to our daughter’s house. Everyone else did the same.

Brad was the first to give the crisp a try, and he said he couldn’t tell the difference between the taste of one made with regular flour and the whole wheat one, and we all agreed that the change in flour didn’t make any difference. Everyone at the table thought the crisp was good. The only problem I had with it was that I would prefer more of a cobbler consistency instead of the crisp consistency. The crisp didn’t have that juicy filling that I like. But this recipe is a definite winner when it comes to Brad having a dessert without plain white flour in it. Here’s to a Nailed It whole wheat recipe that will go into my self-made cookbook.

Whole Wheat Apple Crisp

Ingredients

6 medium tart apples (such as Pink Lady or Gala), peeled, sliced

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar, divided

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and divided

3/4 cup old-fashioned oats

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Vanilla ice cream (for serving)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Toss apples, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons butter in a 2 quart baking dish.

Toss oats, whole wheat flour, cinnamon, salt, remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar, and remaining 4 tablespoons butter in a small bowl until evenly mixed and no dry spots remain (it should be very wet and form into clumps when pressed together).  Sprinkle oat mixture over apples and bake until topping is golden brown (it will crisp as it cools) and filing is juicy and bubbling, 50-60 minutes.  Let cool 10 minutes to let juices set.  Serve topped with scoops of ice cream.

Crisp can be baked 1 day ahead, Cover and chill. Reheat before serving.