Apple crisp

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Apple crumble
Apple crisp with a scoop of vanilla ice cream
Alternative names
Apple crisp
Place of origin
United States
Main ingredients
Apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon; often oats, brown sugar, ginger, nutmeg
Cookbook:Apple crumble  Apple crumble

Apple crisp (name used in the United States and Canada[citation needed]) or apple crumble (name preferred in the United Kingdom and Australia) is a dessert consisting of baked apples topped with a crisp crust. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats and brown sugar, ginger, and/or nutmeg. Many different kinds of fruit can substituted for apples, such as peaches, berries, pears, etc. One of the most common variants is apple rhubarb crisp, in which the rhubarb provides a tart contrast to the apples.


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.

The earliest reference to apple crisp in print occurs in 1924, with a recipe in the Everybody's Cook Book: A Comprehensive Manual of Home Cookery, Isabel Ely Lord [Harcout Brace and Company: New York] 1924 (p. 239). In 1924, apple crisp also makes an appearance in a newspaper article in the Appleton Post Crescent on Tuesday, December 9, 1924 (Appleton, Wisconsin). Despite its relatively recent invention, apple crisp or crumble has become an American and British tradition especially during the autumn, when apples are plentiful. The dish is also very popular in Canada, especially in areas where berries and fruit are readily available.

Variations of this dish are much older. For example, a recipe for apple pandowdy is in Miss Corson’s Practical American Cookery, 1886.[1]

Additionally, in most high-value establishments, apple crumble is served in conjunction with custard. However, it is worth noting in restaurants of lower culinary standing, apple crisp tend to be served with ice cream. Many high-profile chefs of the 21st century have publicly denounced the combination of apple crisp and ice cream. This is because, as the ice cream melts it mixes with the apple and undermines the crumbles texture, which is an integral part of the popular dessert.


An apple crisp dessert

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.

Apple Brown Betty (or apple pudding) consists of alternating layers of apples and sweetened buttered bread crumbs or crackers, often with a sauce.

Apple cobbler (also known as apple slump, apple grunt, and apple pandowdy) is an old recipe in which the baked apples are topped with a crust formed of batter, pie crust or baking powder biscuit dough. The topping may be dropped onto the top of the apples in clumps, which have a 'cobbled' appearance, thus the name. Apple pan dowdy most commonly features a pie crust, which is broken ("dowdied") before serving.

Apple crumble is a British pudding similar to the apple crisp that originated during World War II food rationing. The topping is made of butter, flour, and brown sugar rolled together so that it resembles breadcrumbs. Care must be taken to balance the correct amount of crumble with the fruit, or else the filling may seep through and spoil this crust. Crumble is traditionally served with custard, but today it is sometimes served with cream or ice cream.

Finally Eve's pudding is a British dessert that is essentially a sponge cake on top of the apples. The name may originate from the biblical reference to Eve and the apple in the Garden of Eden.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Corson, Juliet (1886). Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. p. 485. 

External links[edit]