 | This article needs more citations. (February 2013) |
 Apple crisp with a scoop of vanilla ice cream | |
| Alternative names | Apple crumble |
|---|---|
| Region or state | Everybody's Cookbook: United States |
| Main ingredients | |
Apple crisp (US, or apple crumble in the UK and Canada) is a baked fruit dessert made with a streusel topping. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, and cinnamon. An early reference to apple crisp appears in print in 1915.
An apple crisp dessert is made with a streusel topping and apple filling. In the US, it is also called apple crumble, a word which refers to a different dessert in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats and brown sugar, ginger or nutmeg. One of the most common variants is apple rhubarb crisp, in which the rhubarb provides a tart contrast to the apples.[citation needed]
Apple crisp is a relatively modern dish. It is notably absent from the first edition of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook (1896), which is a comprehensive collection of American recipes. Similar dishes for example, a recipe for apple pandowdy, a type of Cobbler is in Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery, 1886.
An early reference to a crumble-style topping was a recipe for apple crumble in the Canadian Farmer's Magazine in February 1917. However, the earliest reference to apple crisp specifically in print occurs in September 1915 edition of Good Housekeeping. Apple crisp also made an appearance in a newspaper article in the Appleton Post Crescent on December 9, 1924.
The related British dish, apple crumble, developed separately. British chef and food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall describes crumbles as a "national institution" that became popular in the United Kingdom after World War II, the crumble topping a simpler practical alternative to the pastry required for apple pie.
Despite their relatively recent invention, apple crisp and apple crumble have each become culinary traditions in their respective countries, particularly during autumn when apples are plentiful.[citation needed] Both dishes are also popular in Canada, especially in areas where berries and fruit are readily available.[citation needed] While apple is the most common filling, the format lends itself to a wide variety of fruits depending on the season, including rhubarb in spring, soft fruits such as gooseberries, raspberries and blackberries in summer, and plums and pears in autumn.
Many other kinds of fruit crisps are also made, these may substitute other fruits, such as peaches, berries, or pears, for the apples. There are a number of desserts that employ apples with sweet toppings, but none of them are the same as apple crisp, making them not so much variants, but instead other related apple desserts.
Media related to Apple crisps at Wikimedia Commons
Apple Crisp at the Wikibooks Cookbook subproject
