LDW has come and gone, thus apple season has officially begun. Although some of you have been rocking desserts like apple s’mores and hasselback apples all summer long. It’s a bit too early for pie (it’s too much work thus far ahead of Thanksgiving!), but it’s the perfect time for apple crisp.
Our basic recipe is the easiest and best, in our opinion. However, we could never pass up the opportunity for a celebrity snackdown. Enter: Ina, the beloved Barefoot Contessa, versus Karlie Kloss, model, vlogger, and celebrity who, like the Kardashians, has an affinity for replacing the letter c with k.
INA’S RECIPE
This crisp is pretty traditional, but in typical Ina fashion, it has a few fussy steps and requirements. First, she very specifically wants you to use McIntosh or Macoun apples, neither of which we could find in our local grocery stores. And her instructions say to use a 9"-x-14" oval baking dish. (We can say confidently that the shape of your baking vessel will not affect the taste.)
There’s also the fact that she calls for very cold butter to be beaten in a stand mixer with flour and sugar until coarse crumbs form. Why we don’t just start with softened butter and mix everything with a wooden spoon, we’re not sure.
The orange zest and juice, however, are what really made the difference in the taste test. Most people appreciated the floral notes, though some wanted less of it. One person equated the taste to melted down jolly ranchers.
KARLIE’S RECIPE
How is a supermodel who looks the way she does on the runway “obsessed” with baking? She turns everything — from kookies to apple krisps — healthy.
Instead of butter, she uses coconut oil. Rather than all-purpose flour, she adds almond meal and gluten-free oats. And instead of granulated or brown sugar, she uses a combination of date sugar and maple syrup. Beyond the facts that date sugar is annoying as hell to find and that the final baked dish is not easy on the eyes (the Jolly Rancher taste tester eloquently said it looked she dumped the contents of a sandbox on top), the flavors worked better than we had anticipated.
But Karlie made a huge mistake and severely underbaked it. With only 30 minutes in the oven, the apples didn’t have a chance to break down and were therefore upsettingly dry.
THE VERDICT
Ina wins! When people are craving fall, they don't want a made over krisp with coconut oil, they want butter. And bubbling, syrupy apples.
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