Equipment
- Oven (350 F)
- 9 x 13 baking dish (preferably glass)
- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Small knife
- Apple coring tool
- Mixing bowl
- Mixing spoon
- Small bowl
- Spoon
Ingredients
The filling
- 4 lbs apples (I use Roma)
- The number of apples will vary on their size. But if you bought a bag of apples then judge the amount based on the weight and number. So if you bought a 5lb bag, then use roughly 4/5ths.
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup apple juice or water
- 1 tablespoon arrowroot powder (cornstarch will work too)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 1/8 teaspoon cloves
- >> ground?
- 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
The topping
- 1 cup quick cooking oats (not instant)
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/3 cup canola oil
- 3 tablespoon soy milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 350 F
- Peel, core and thinly slice apples.
- Slicing thinly is important. Many apples stay far too firm, and larger chunks are too difficult to balance on your fork to eat.
- Dissolve the arrowroot in the apple juice or water. Set aside.
- Place apples and raisins in the baking dish
- add sugars and spices and combine everything well (you may need to use your hands to do this).
- Pour the arrowroot (or corn starch) mixture over everything.
- To prepare the topping in a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients.
- Add oil, soymilk, and vanilla, mix well.
- Crumble topping over the apples.
- Bake for 45 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.
Variations
- Instead of quick cooking oats, use rolled oats
- Instead of raisins, use dried cranberries
- Use dark brown sugar. Reduce the 1/2 cup of regular sugar in the filling to just a dusting over the apples, and in the topping, reduce the cup of brown sugar to 3/4 of a cup.
- Reduce the sugar by about 1/2 and add a drizzle of maple syrup.
- If you use gala apples which are pretty sweet, squeeze one lemon over them, and add the zest of that said lemon.
- Add about 1/2 cup each of flax seeds, hulled pumpkin seeds, and unsweetened, shredded coconut to the topping.
- Double the amount of topping you use.
- Add frozen or fresh berries to the mix
- Add coconut flakes to the filling and the topping
- Flax seeds onto the topping.
- Instead of pouring the arrowroot or corn starch mixture overtop of everything, combine it directly into the crust. Use more of it.
- You could create a bottom layer, borrowing from the date square / fruit square concept.
- When creating the bottom layer, you can consider making a "wall" along the sides of your pan. You're essentially surrounding your filling on all sides, making a pseudo-pie.
- Mixing date squares in with the apple filling is actually quite good. It seems quite possible to mix various kinds of fruit together, and this would work especially good if you don't have enough of any one kind of fruit.
- I once made this without baking powder and it didn't seem to matter.
Thoughts
A wonderful recipe and can easily be widely varied.
I strongly dislike nutmeg/cloves. I made it the "proper" way once, didn't like it and then I started to vary it by removing such things.
This can come out quite wet. Also, make sure to peel apples, it's a bad idea to keep them in.
