SAG Awards Apple-Cherry Crisp

I'm heading over to my neighbor's to watch the SAG awards tonight and after getting a delivery of apples from my CSA last week and finding a bag of dried cherries that need to be used up, I googled for some apple-cherry crisp recipes and settled on this one from Epicurious. I followed the ingredients list, even finding crystalized ginger!

For topping
1 1/4 cups old-fashioned or quick oats
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (pumpkin pie spice makes a great substitution)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature - for DF: use same amount Earth Balance spread
3/4 cup almonds, lightly toasted, chopped
1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger

For Filling
4 pounds Granny Smith or Pippin apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1 1/2 cups dried tart cherries
1/3 cup sugar (Epicurious suggests 1/2 c. but that seems like it would be too sweet)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or the pumpkin pie spice here too)

Make filling:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine apples, cherries, sugar, lemon juice, flour and ground cinnamon in large bowl. Mix to blend well. Pour into the 9x13 pan.

Make topping:
Mix oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt in large bowl. Add butter and rub in until coarse crumbs form. Mix in almonds and ginger. (Topping can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.) 

 
Adding the butter is best done with your hands, or two knives chopping it up into pea size balls if you don't want to get your hands that dirty.

Cover the top of the 9x13 pan with topping and bake for 45 minutes. It might take longer depending on your oven as the original recipe says to make in small ramekins and bake for 40 mins in those.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

What to do when you have way too many apples to eat before they go bad and have to bring something to our department breakfast, I mean meeting, tomorrow morning?  You google "apple muffins" then realize that you have lots of oats too and change the search to "apple oatmeal muffins."  First recipe to pop up was this Apple-Oatmeal Recipe from Martha Stewart, so I decided to adapt it to dairy-free.

I made the first dozen, then worried it wouldn't be enough for the department so I made a second dozen, and in true daughter-of-a-scientist fashion, made some changes to the second batch to see how things work.

Dozen One

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup normal oats (old-fashioned, not quick)
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder - accidentally put in 1 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon, realized my error and scooped a bit out
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (she says 1/2, I like more spice usually, thus I also added a dash of cloves and nutmeg)
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 stick Earth Balance "butter", melted and cooled (Google says 1 stick is 1/2 cup so that's what I put in)
1/2 cup almond milk
1 hard apple, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (1 1/4 cups)

Mix according to her directions and then bake for 20 mins at 350.  I did accidentally stir the dry into the wet instead of the wet into the dry - hope that doesn't matter!

Dozen Two

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oats
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder - did it right this time
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (same additions as above)
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup almond milk
1 hard apple, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (1 1/4 cups)

handful of raisins

Same mixing and same baking.

I then looked up substituting oil for butter and found that it's not equal like I assumed.  According to New Health Guide, you use 10 tablespoons of canola oil for 1 cup of butter, so I should have used 5 tablespoons of oil per their suggestions, but I used more like 8 tbsp with my conversion so I added about 1/4 cup extra oats.  On the other hand, Livestrong says "For every 1/4 cup butter, use 4 tablespoons vegetable oil or 3 tablespoons olive oil."  Still off in my calculations.

The taste test...

Both are pretty light on the inside.  Dozen 2 rose a bit more and was more moist, which is how I like muffins better, so in my book, that's the winning recipe!  We'll see how they fare tomorrow.