While I love a expertly spiced apple pie or an elegant apple tart, sometimes I don’t have the desire to make a pie crust or slice and layer apples in a tart. Apple crisp is a delightful, and simple alternative. My pet peeve for fruit crisps is bad toppings, I have had far too many toppings consisting of mostly unadorned oats, sitting atop poorly cooked fruit. There is no reason that a crisp has to be boring, even if you don’t go through the trouble of making pastry.

I had originally bought a bag of apples with the intention of making caramel apples, but as they sat in my refrigerator, I decided they needed to be used. I didn’t want to give up on the apple and caramel combination, so I added a caramel sauce. Instead of oat I used a streusel topping, and topped it with some coconut whipped cream. If caramel is out side of your comfort zone you could serve with apple cider reduction sauce.

Apple Crisp

2 lbs apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp cognac (optional)
2 Tbsp arrow root powder
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Topping

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Earth Balance, chilled
pinch of salt

Caramel Sauce or Apple Cider Reduction
Coconut Whipped Cream or Soyatoo

Preheat oven to 400°. Lightly Grease a 9×13 baking dish and set a side. In a large bowl combine apples, lemon juice, cognac, sugar, arrow root, and spices. Toss to coat. Transfer to greased baking dish. In a separate bowl combine topping ingredients and work with a pastry blender or fingers until it forms small crumbs. Spread topping over apples and bake 15-20 min until apples are soft and topping is lightly browned.

To serve

Spoon caramel sauce onto plates. Scoop a heap of crisp onto center of plate and top with whipped cream.

Some times you don’t have time to bake dessert, especially at hectic times like the holidays. If you are looking for pie, the most likely solution you will find is an apple pie (even many of your standard frozen brands, like Marie Callenders, are vegan). Even if you are resorting to purchasing your sweets, it doesn’t take a lot to elevate a store bought pie and a quart of vegan ice cream to a new level. The easiest way to class up most desserts? A sauce of course. This sauce is incredibly simple (three ingredients) and chalk full of seasonal flavor. Tangy cider reduces into a caramel like sauce and cognac and vanilla round out the flavors. Use cider, not juice, and the tangyer the better since you don’t want to end up with just apple juice concentrate. The sauce does reduce significantly, so just keep simmering till it is a good syrupy consistency.

Apple Cider Reduction Sauce

2 cups spiced apple cider
1/4 cup cognac (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine cider and cognac in a sauce pan over high heat. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a brisk simmer. Cook, stirring regularly,  until reduced to a syrupy consistency, about the thickness of maple syrup. It should yield about 1/3 cup sauce from 2 cups cider. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Let cool before serving. Sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.