Testing Less Sugar Apple Crisp

When I was about 16 years old, a very long time ago, I started thinking ahead to one day getting married, having a family and cooking. At the time, I knew nothing of cooking, really. My sisters and I did on occasion try our hand at making a box cake. Making icing was somewhat less a success. With Mom's supervision, we made cookies for holidays. Though I didn't cook then, and did not until I was actually married and moved to Guatemala, I knew there would come a time for it. I began tearing out pages from some of Mom's magazines that had recipes sounding good to me at the time. 

One of the things I tore out was a little insert of a few pages on things to do with apples. From adding applesauce to meat loaf to desserts, this little flyer had it. The one recipe I took from there was an apple crisp. Ever since first making this recipe, I was totally in love. For me it is even better than apple pie, which is hard to beat. Mom never made an apple crisp, in my recollection. Her Mom made what she called an apple cake - not a cake at all but more like a deep dish sort of drier apple pie. I do not know what ever became of that recipe. I know I had it once. I know I tried making it once. It did not come out at all as I remembered, so I never made it again.

Less Sugar Apple Crisp

So back to the apple crisp. The recipe as it stood was small, filling only an 8 x 8" or 11 x 7" pan. I doubled the recipe later on and kept it that way, though some of the measurements had to be changed slightly to work better. I have made this recipe so often and for so long that I feel it is mine. The topping for this apple crisp is not your usual oatmeal topping, but a sort of streusel-like mixture given the texture by adding eggs. I have never ever seen a recipe like this anywhere else. I love it so much I have called it my Best Apple Crisp, Ever. I get nothing but raves, every time. It is so simple. Far easier and quicker than making a pie.

But.

Lately I have had more difficulty keeping my blood glucose numbers at an acceptable level. I bought that Stevia in the Raw that is used cup for cup like sugar. I used it with less than perfect results in some "Half the Sugar Chocolate Chip Spice Cookies" recently. The cookies were good but with a texture I was less fond of. I am not crazy about the idea of maltodextrin being the main ingredient in that "stevia" either. I have it in the pantry though, so I will use it.

Sugar is a funny thing to try and replace. I am seeing this more now that I am experimenting with less or no sugar in recipes. Sugar creates moisture. Use less sugar, and a recipe is less moist. The cookies turned out somewhat dry and without the chewiness I associate with chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious. Just not what I wanted. The same happened with my apple crisp yesterday. I substituted a fourth of the brown sugar in the apples themselves, and a full half of the sugar in the topping with Stevia in the Raw. 

Another thing different in this recipe was the fact that I used dehydrated apples. I had a glut of apples coming to me last Fall, so when my freezer could hold no more I started slicing and dehydrating apples. I used 2 bags of what would have been 8 cups fresh apples EACH, setting them into a bowl of water to reconstitute. These dehydrated apples do grow, but not to original size. I used all these apples in a 9 x 13 pan, adding in the brown sugar and stevia, lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg as usual for my recipe. The apples were moist all through. Yet they did not make the juicy sauce in the pan that I normally see. The topping is nice, though less moist, but that is fine as I like the topping crisp. The difficulty is that the apples did not compensate for the dry topping with the usual sauce. The flavors are perfect. It's just more dry. A little cream or ice cream would likely make the dryness less noticeable. Obviously this can be made with fresh apples also. Here is what I did:

Less-Sugar Apple Crisp

Less Sugar Apple Crisp

Makes one 9 x 13-inch pan

8 cups apples, peeled, cored, sliced
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup Stevia in the Raw
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
4 tablespoons lemon or lime juice

TOPPING:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup Stevia in the Raw
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 on Convection). Place the first 6 ingredients into a 9 x 13-inch baking dish and mix with spoon or hands to combine. Whisk together in a large bowl the first 5 topping ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the 2 eggs. Pour the eggs into the dry ingredients and quickly mix with a fork until the mixture looks like crumbs. Pour this over top of the apples in the baking dish. Drizzle the melted butter over top of the crumb mixture and sprinkle with the cinnamon and nutmeg. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the apples are bubbling.

When I had this in the oven I thought , "Drat! I could have tried making it Gluten-Free!" I have never attempted that either, though I cannot imagine why it would not work out. Particularly if made with all real sugar and no Stevia in the Raw. Another day.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.

Quick and Easy Blackberry Cobbler

Blackberries are out at a pretty decent price right now. I found out in the last couple of years that I love blackberries. As I mentioned in a recent post, I mainly grew up on a property that had such abundance of fruit; berries, cherries and other, as well as the vegetable garden my Dad planted each year. We did have a few blackberries way in the back of the yard, but with the huge and much sweeter red raspberry bushes, the blackberries sort of got left to their own fate. They always seemed sour. I never realized how sweet they can get.

I love to make apple crisp. Until recently I had not deviated to any other fruit in a "crisp." Not too long ago I had 2 cans of pie filling: one was blackberry and one was raspberry. I bought them with the intent of making pies for our friend Heidi, but she ended up not coming for that particular trip, so the cans were left in the pantry. I opened both cans and poured them into a pan and topped it with the same "crisp" topping I use for my Best Apple Crisp, Ever and baked it. It was really heavenly. Cobblers, on the other hand, with all that biscuit dough on top have never thrilled me. Just too much dough to fruit ratio. 

Blackberry Cobbler

Some long years ago I made a blackberry cobbler of a different sort. Rolling the biscuit dough out thinly and placing the fruit onto this large piece of dough, I rolled it like for a jelly roll or cinnamon rolls. It was sliced into spirals and laid into a baking pan with melted butter in the bottom and topped with a simple syrup. After baking, the biscuit dough completely absorbs all the syrup and the fruit is nicely spaced throughout. I liked this variation a lot and have made a few cobblers over the years, but always with berries. Blackberries alone or blackberries with raspberries; both excellent. My husband objects to the seeds in these kind of berries. It doesn't stop him from eating the cobbler though! I did a couple of things slightly differently this time, so I am re-posting the recipe here. I have to imagine this same technique would work with other fruits, particularly soft fruits like maybe blueberries, peaches, plums or apricots.

Blackberry Cobbler

Makes one 9 x 13-inch pan

10 tablespoons + 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1½ cups sugar
1½ cups water
1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup milk, more if needed
3 cups fresh or frozen blackberries, cut in half if very large
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
2 tablespoons sugar for sprinkling, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a saucepan, heat the 1½ cups sugar with 1½ cups water until sugar is melted; set aside. Melt the 8 tablespoons (1 stick) of the butter and pour it into the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish; set aside. Place flour in a mixing bowl with the baking powder, soda and salt; cut in the 10 tablespoons of butter until fine crumbs form. Add milk, stirring with a fork until dough leaves the sides of the bowl. If more liquid is needed to bring together all the crumbs, add more one tablespoon at a time. Turn out onto a floured board; knead 3 - 4 times to just bring together.

Berries rolled in the dough    |    roll sliced and set atop butter in baking dish    |    syrup poured into pan to bake

Roll dough to a large rectangle, about ¼-inch thick. Spread berries over the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon if desired. Roll up, jelly-roll style, from the longer edge. Cut the long roll into 6 very thick slices. Carefully lay slices in baking dish over the butter. Pour the sugar syrup around slices (it will be absorbed when baking). If desired, sprinkle with the 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes. Serve warm or cold.


If you note how hugely tall the slices were before putting them in the pan, understand that again, guests were here in the kitchen with me and I was hurrying. I wasn't totally sure just how this would come out after baking. What happened was that the tall slices puddled down and filled out the space in the pan. It was perfect. In my older recipe it used smaller amounts for ingredients. I like this newer recipe much better. Also, the older recipe had the log of dough cut into 12 slices and set closely in the pan. Either way turns out great. I will say that this time the biscuit dough turned out gently crisp and flaky in the upper parts that were exposed, while being just moist and sweet underneath. This was an all around, really good recipe. A great revision of an old recipe.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.