Layers of warm, gooey apples, buttery cobbler dough, AND sugary streusel make this the perfect autumn treat.

Ingredients

Apple Filling

• 5 cups apples (we like Honeycrisp or Gravestein), peeled and chopped
• *about 2 lbs of apples
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice *to sprinkle once in dish

Cobbler Layer

• ¾ c whole wheat pastry flour
• ½ cup dark brown sugar, packed
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp kosher salt
• 1 large egg
• 3 tbsp salted butter, separated

Crisp Layer

• 5 tbsp salted butter, softened to room temperature
• ¾ cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/3 c whole wheat pastry flour
• ½ c old fashioned oats
• 1 tsp cinnamon

*Additional butter or cooking spray to grease the baking dish(es). This recipe uses a little over 1 stick of butter. **You can swap regular flour for the whole wheat pastry flour – your cobbler layer will look a bit more dough-y, but you will still get a super yummy dessert!

Tools & Timing

• Large prep bowl
• Peeler
• Cutting board & knife
• Measuring cups & spoons
• Fork or pastry blender
• Small glass bowl (for heating butter)
• Glass baking dish

Prep Time: 15 min; Bake Time: 45 Min  Total Time: 60 Minutes

Background

Confession: I am often too lazy to make pastry dough…but my husband loves apple pie, and I love him….soooooooo, I decided to find a shortcut: enter Cobbler Apple Crisp. The filling is beautifully reminiscent of warm apple pie, topped with easy layers of cobbler and streusel. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and you have the perfect, easy autumn dessert!

Step-by-step

*Set out butter 30 minutes before baking so it can come to room temperature.

Prep your baking dishes with butter – use about 1 Tbsp of butter, and rub butter all over the inside of your baking dish(es)!

Prep your Apple Layer

*Preheat your oven to 350.

1. Peel your apples.
2. Chop each apple in half. Then, working vertically, cut them into ½ in pieces – then slice the pieces in half  horizontally (see photos). *They don’t have to be perfect, but you want them to be similar in size so they cook evenly!
3. Add your apples to your prep bowl. Add white sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Toss to coat apple chunks evenly.
4. Pour apple chunks into a layer in your baking dish – try to get it as even as possible, but don’t stress if it’s not perfect!
5. Sprinkle the top with pumpkin pie spice.

**You need about 5 cups of apple chunks; however, there will be space between the chunks when you put them in a measuring bowl – don’t worry about that!

Prep your Cobbler Layer

1. In the same prep bowl from above, add whole wheat pastry flour, brown sugar, kosher salt, and baking powder. Blend with a fork (or pastry tool).
2. Add egg; blend – it will be very crumby and the egg won’t blend all the way yet – don’t worry!
3. Melt 1 Tbsp of butter and blend. You will still have something that is more crumbs than dough – that’s the goal.
4. Layer this as best you can over your apple chunks.
5. Melt the other 2 Tbsp of butter…and drizzle this melted butter as evenly as you can over your crumbs.

Prep your Streusel.

1. In the same prep bowl as above, add brown sugar, pastry flour, old-fashioned oats, and cinnamon. Blend with fork (or your hand).
2. Add softened butter. Blend until all butter in evenly incorporated and you have a crumbly texture.
3. Layer the streusel over your cobbler layer.

Bake

1. Bake for 40-50 minutes (smaller dishes require less bake time). *I usually use one 7 ½” x 11″ x 3″ dish – this option takes 45 minutes to bake. However, for this photoshoot, I used smaller baking dishes – this option was done in 35-40 minutes. What ever size baking dish you use, know that
   • a deeper apple layer will result in a gooier product!
   • different baking dishes will have slightly different bake times – so check to see if the top has browned…you should be able to see some of the apple layer bubble…and you should definitely smell a heavenly aroma about 5-10 minutes before it’s done!

Serve and Enjoy

Other Options

If you love fall, but pumpkin is more your flavor, try my Chocolate Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting or my Chocolate Pumpkin Mousse Tarts

Bloopers (and Make-ahead Advice)

I wanted to experiment a bit with this recipe. So…I tried a few things and figured out how to prep this ahead of time (and I also figured out what NOT to do haha):

1. First, I made a large portion in one baking dish…and saved some for later…this option worked REALLY well. So…if you want to make this ahead of time, you totally can…just bake it, let it cool, and then pop it in the fridge with saran wrap…then, when you are ready…heat it back up in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at 250 and serve!
2. I next tried to make it ahead by prepping all the layers without baking – do NOT do this! The apple layer got really watery (because the sugar pulled the moisture out of the apples)…so after I drained the moisture out and layered everything, the final product was much more dry. Still good but missing that gooey magic.