Just a few weeks ago, my husband, kids, and I made our annual trip to Crane Orchard in Fennville, Michigan. It's such a fun family tradition, but what's even more fun is to daydream about all of the different recipes we can potentially create with the pounds and pounds of apples we pick. This year we walked away with a combination of Mutsu, Golden Delicious, Crimson Crisp and Jonagold apples equaling a total of 26 pounds!
We could have picked more, but we just didn’t have the space to store all of them. Watch how The Chopping Block's Owner/Chef Shelley Young selects apples.
In years past we have made apple fritters, apple butter and apple pie. This year, even after we ended up making a huge batch of apple butter because it's just so good, we still had lots of leftover apples that needed to find their way into a recipe. After a good deal of pondering (because there are millions of apple recipes to choose from), I decided to bring two of my favorite dessert recipes together for a mash-up!
If you have ever had a slice of our famous apple pie, then you know how delicious it is. I wanted to capture that same flavor and texture in an apple cobbler format, so I used the recipe for our apple pie filling, and then poured it into a baking dish (click here to watch a video of how it's made). The only major difference being that I cut the apples into 1-inch pieces instead of slices.
For the topping, I used our basic, yet delicious, cobbler topping recipe... here it is:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1. For the biscuit topping, combine the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar in a medium-size bowl. Stir in the cream until you have a stiff dough. If the dough is too dry, add more cream one teaspoon at a time.
2. Break off small balls of biscuit dough and place on top of the fruit. Brush generously with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake the cobbler at 350º for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the filling is bubbling.
Allow to cool a bit, and then serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
The result of combining these two recipes was not only extremely delicious, but also very easy to execute. This is such a do-able and crowd-pleasing recipe for any dinner party, or if you just feel like having a delicious apple-focused dessert on a Tuesday night!
