So it’s full-on fall, my favorite time of year, especially here in wine country. The
leaves on the vines are changing colors, the nights and mornings are cool and crisp and, with the grape crush in process, the air itself smells like wine. But we don’t only grow grapes in these parts. This is also apple harvest time, and not for nothing is a nearby highway in the next county over called the Gravenstein Highway. We got apples, baby, lots and lots of ’em. In need of distraction from presidential debates and yammering pundits
and proliferating yard signs and half-baked opinions polluting the autumn airwaves, yesterday I consulted Food Network and whipped up a batch of sure-fire comfort food tailor-made for the season.
Apple crisp is one of those dishes wherein simplicity reigns. It’s easier than pie, and when made with the right apples, it’s make-your-socks-roll-up-and-down delicious. Served with creme fraiche (stay tuned) it becomes a slightly more sophisticated dessert, rich and tangy and sweet and toothsome and crunchy, all at the same time. Plus it makes your kitchen smell like the childhood you wish you’d had.
We’re still in peak season for local apples, but not for much longer. So if you too could use a break from the election sturm und drang, here’s what to do:
Chop up some walnuts, about half a cup, throw them in a shallow pan and toast ’em in a 400 degree oven for a few minutes while you get started on the apples.
Squeeze the juice from a fresh lemon (or, if it’s super juicy, a half-lemon; you want somewhere in the neighborhood of 2Tbsp, maybe a little more) into a big bowl and add 1/2 cup of sugar. Stir it around to let the sugar dissolve.
Peel, core, and slice into thin wedges 6 good-sized baking apples. For my last batch, I used a combo of Rome and Arkansas Black that I got from an organic grower at our local farmer’s market. Spendy, but worth it. Whatever apples you use, make sure they’re the kind that will stand up to baking without turning to mush or losing their flavor. Don’t bother with standard Red Delicious. I find it easiest to use a vegetable peeler and peel each apple whole, then halve it, core it, and slice it and throw the slices into the bowl with the lemon juice and sugar to keep the apples from turning too brown.
Don’t forget about the walnuts toasting in the oven! As soon as you can smell them, they’re toasted. Take ’em out, stir them around a bit to let them cool, and turn the oven down to 350 (unless you have a pathetically slow oven like I do, in which case keep it to 385).
Stir 2 Tbsp of all-purpose flour in with your apple slices, lemon juice and sugar.
Butter a baking dish or 13X9 inch pan (you’ll need that size if you used big apples, like I did), and pour in the apple slices.
In another bowl, make the topping. You can use a food processor for this operation, but I find it more fun to start with a pastry cutter and then just use my hands. Put into the bowl: 1 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 cup rolled oats (the boring kind, not steel-cut), 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp salt, and the toasted walnuts. Adjust the measurements upwards if you’ve got more apples to cover; don’t stress over the proportions too much. This ain’t souffle we’re makin’ here.
Cut up 1 and 1/2 sticks (again, adjust) cold butter into small pieces and work them into the topping mixture with the pastry cutter (or, ok, your food processor) until it starts to come together and you can squish it into blobs (see why it’s more fun to use your hands?).
Distribute blobs of the topping over the apples until you’ve got them all covered and you’ve used up all the topping.
Put the whole shebang in the oven, uncovered, and bake for about 45 minutes 
until the fruit is bubbling, the topping is looking crisp and the aroma is making you swoon. Remove from oven and allow to cool down from its present thermonuclear status.
Serve warm. You can top it with vanilla bean ice cream and it will be lovely, but I prefer giving it a dollop of creme fraiche.
Creme fraiche, you say, that stuff that costs four times as much as sour cream even if I can find it in the dairy case? Ah, but not if you make your own. This is one of those kitchen tricks that is absurdly easy yet will earn your admiring gasps from your foodie friends (until they catch on and do it themselves). Here’s what you do:
Pour 2 cups of heavy whipping cream into a Mason jar (or something that will eventually have a tight-fitting lid. Mason jars look cute but aren’t vital to the process). Now add two Tbsp. of cultured (duh) buttermilk and stir briefly. Cover the jar loosely (a paper towel will do fine) and put it in a sunny window.
And that’s it. After some time — it could be 8 to 24 hours, 48 at the outside, 
depending on the warmth of your sunny window and the vigor of the flora in the buttermilk — the stuff will culture and thicken enough to coat the back of a spoon. Put the lid on it, stick it in the fridge (where it will thicken a bit more) and voilá.
Here’s the one critical part: make sure the cream you use is not flash-pasteurized, a process that uses a brief blast of heat and will give the cream a scorched-earth policy when it comes to any attempt to culture it. Get some nice hippy-dippy local cream and you’ll be OK. Some methods tell you to heat the cream and buttermilk to “tepid”, but it’s really not necessary unless your house is bereft of sunny windows. If you do heat it, beware of overdoing it: you don’t want the cream to get any warmer than about 85 degrees; not even body temp, or again the poor critters in the buttermilk won’t stand a chance.
And then you will have a jar full of what would be about $12.00 worth of thick, rich, barely tangy wonderfulness tasting, unaccountably, of hazelnuts. Whatever you don’t use on your apple crisp can be used to make glorious pancakes, dollop on pizza, or used to thicken sauces since the stuff doesn’t curdle in heat like sour
cream does (swirl some of into pan juices next time you roast some meat, and your dinner guests will gape at you like you just channeled the French Chef).
Invite some friends over to not talk about politics. Serve warm apple crisp generously topped with whatever, and let there be peace on earth. At least for a few minutes.
What about you? How are you coping with the campaign crazies? Please comment and share: we’re all in this together. If you try these recipes, let me know how they turned out!
