Recipe Review: Ina Garten the Barefoot Contessa’s Old-Fashioned Apple Crisp

Thanks so much for the Thanksgiving wishes yesterday! Warmed my heart. 🙂

Last year I made Ina Garten AKA the Barefoot Contessa‘s mammoth Old-Fashioned Apple Crisp recipe for New Year’s Eve. It was a huge hit! It was seriously the best apple crisp I had ever tasted and have been wanting to share it with you ever since. We had our little Canadian Thanksgiving celebration last night so instead of making the giant dessert, I divided the recipe in half and made individual crisps.

I made a crockpot roast beef for a roast beef dinner for my mother-in-law Lorraine in a panic yesterday. They threw all the roasts together and I did not know I picked up an eye of round roast which means it was one of the leanest roasts but also the toughest! I threw it in the crockpot with the veggies, wine and broth and put it on high for five hours! Thankfully, it was perfect come dinner time. Phew!

I roasted some corn, steamed beans, made mashed potatoes with my family’s special gravy and a sweet potato casserole I just have to share with you one day. So good! Oh and in the middle of the table is some of my dill bread. This was the only meal I ate yesterday and… I forgot to make the Yorkshire pudding!!! Batter is still in the fridge, doh!

Back to the mini apple crisps! I only had granny smith apples so I did a large chop of six apples and added the zest, juice, sugar and spices and combined.

I put the apples in buttered ramekins. It really did not take too long to peel and slice the apples. I always skip the apple corer, that thing is more trouble that it is worth! I just cut off the “cheeks” of the apples, cut around the core and then just slice them up. Much easier!

I mixed together the flour, sugars, salt and oatmeal and used my fingers to combine with the cold butter.

Ina uses a mixer to make pea-size pieces but this is fine:

I topped the apple-filled ramekins with the crumble topping and then I baked in a 350F oven for 40 minutes. At this length of time, the apples really just melted together and were wonderful. If you want some bite to your apples, bake for less time, around 20-30 minutes.

I kept them nice and warm in the oven as we were eating our feast of a dinner. We had a beautiful fall day, perfect for our Thanksgiving.