Recipe: Apple Crisp

• Yield: One 9-inch square pan of crisp
• Total time: 1½ hours, plus cooling

Few bakes comfort me more than apple crisp. My mother’s distant relatives owned an apple orchard outside my hometown. On autumn visits to me during college, Mom almost always brought a pan of crisp, a bushel of apples, and a half-gallon of fresh cider. Crisp was probably the first thing I ever baked by myself for friends.

I prefer a high fruit-to-crisp ratio, so I pile the apples high. Because I pack so much fruit in here, it takes a long time to bake. Baking it on the lowest oven rack prevents the top from burning before the apples are cooked. You might initially think that this recipe has too many apples. Apples contain a lot of air, which is why they float when we bob for them. During cooking, that air escapes, and the apples collapse. If you start with fewer apples, you’ll end up with a sad, thin excuse for a crisp.

• 1.2 kg (about 5–8 medium) apples, ideally a mix of firm sweet-tart and tart varieties
• 66–100 g (⅓–½ cup) sugar (use more sugar if your apples are tart)
• 20 g (2 tablespoons) cornstarch
• ½ teaspoon (2 g) ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon (2 g) fine sea salt
• 30 g (2 tablespoons) Calvados (optional)
• 1 recipe All-Purpose Crisp Topping (below)

Prepare. Heat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the lowest position. Line a half-sheet pan with parchment paper. Butter a 9-inch square ceramic or tempered-glass baking dish.

Make the apple filling. Peel the apples if you want. I usually don’t. Core and chop the apples into roughly ½-inch chunks, then put them in a large bowl. After you’ve cored them, you should have about 1 kilogram of apples. Add the sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt, then toss to coat the apples. If you want to go the extra mile, add the Calvados and toss to combine.

Assemble. Add the apple mixture to the baking dish. It may look absurdly high. Mine usually is at least level with the top of my baking dish, if not slightly higher. Sprinkle an even layer of crisp topping over the apples. Depending on the size of your dish, you may only need three-quarters of the topping. You can freeze the rest for later. Put the baking dish on the lined sheet pan to catch any drips.

Bake until the crisp turns walnut brown and the filling bubbles all around the edges, 65–80 minutes. Start to check the crisp after 30 minutes. Once it’s brown to your liking, loosely cover the crisp with a piece of aluminum foil for the remainder of baking. You can test if the apples are done by piercing the center of the crisp with a paring knife. Your knife should meet some resistance, but it should not feel hard. The apples will continue to cook after you remove the crisp from the oven. If your knife meets tremendous resistance, then bake it for another 5 minutes. Baking time depends on the pan and the varieties of apples you use.

Let the crisp cool for at least 30 minutes. Serve warm.

This crisp is best the day it’s made, but will keep, covered at room temperature, for 1 day, and is best reheated.

It all started with a crisp. My mom made a butter, sugar, flour, oat, and cinnamon version. Classic. I fused Mom’s recipe with an idea from another baking guru, David Lebovitz. David’s addition of polenta lends a robust crunch, but I find that medium-ground cornmeal offers a more subtle crunch. You can mix this by hand, but I prefer to make this in the food processor—it takes no time at all.

Some people call this crisp, and some people call it crumble. For me, it’s crisp. Because when you eat a crisp, you must ask: Is it crispy?

• 100 g (½ cup) light brown sugar
• 80 g (⅔ cup) rolled oats
• 60 g all-purpose flour (½ cup) or oat flour (⅔ cup)
• 40 g (about ⅓ cup) medium-grind cornmeal or polenta
• ½ teaspoon (3 g) fine sea salt
• ½ teaspoon (2 g) ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon (0.5 g) freshly ground nutmeg
• 113 g (½ cup) butter, cold and cubed
• 60 g (about ½ cup) chopped walnuts, pecans, or pepitas (optional)

By hand. Whisk together the brown sugar, oats, flour, cornmeal, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the butter and use your hands to squeeze and rub the butter into the dry mixture until it disappears and the mixture holds together in clumps. Toss in
the nuts.

In the food processor. Add the brown sugar, flour, cornmeal, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Pulse 2–3 times to combine the dry ingredients. Add the cubed butter and pulse 15–20 times, until the mixture starts to come together in big clumps and you don’t see any chunks of butter. And the oats and nuts and pulse 2–3 times to mix but not totally obliterate them.

At this point, you can put the topping right on your fruit crisp or pop it into an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator for 2–3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. You can bake the crisp topping directly from frozen.

Reprinted with permission from Great Bakes by Martin Sorge, Agate, August 2026.