Fall was kind of sneaking up on us in the Pacific Northwest last week. But now it feels like summer again. I'm not mad about it. These 80° days are good for soaking up some much needed vitamin D. They're also good for eating fall flavored desserts such as this apple pear ginger snap crisp topped with vanilla ice cream. I mean, you can't go wrong with a crisp à la mode no matter what the weather is like.
I used Hu Kitchen grain-free Ginger Snap cookies for this recipe. You can find these cookies here. Use code realfoodedu at checkout.
INGREDIENTS:
(for the filling)
¼ cup maple syrup
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
½ tsp arrowroot starch
⅛ tsp salt
2 honeycrisp apples, peeled, cored and chopped*
1 large starkrimson pear, peeled, cored, and chopped*
(for the topping)
¾ cup almond flour
10 ginger snaps (roughly ground in a food processor)
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp coconut oil (not quite melted)
3 tbsp maple syrup
Pinch of salt
(optional) ¼ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350°F and get out a 8x8 baking dish.
In a mixing bowl, mix together the maple syrup, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
Add the chopped apples and pears to the maple syrup mixture and stir to coat. Then place the coated apples and pears in the baking dish.
In a separate medium mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, pulverized ginger snap cookies, and cinnamon. Slowly mix in the coconut oil, maple syrup, and pinch of salt. If you're using nuts in your topping, you'll want to chop them in the food processor and then add them to the topping mixture here.
Drop the topping mixture onto the apples and pears in the baking dish and gently press down.
Bake for 40 minutes, or until the topping is lightly browned.
If you added nuts to your topping mixture, you may want to check on your dish periodically and tent with foil if the nuts look like they might burn.
Once done, let cool for 10-15 minutes. Then serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
*Most crisp, sweet apple and pear varieties will work for this dish. I just went with honeycrisp apples and starkrimson pears because that's what I found on sale at my local co-op grocer. The starkrimson I found was rather large. If you are using smaller pears, you might want to use two of them in this dish for more volume.
If you try this recipe, I'd love to hear about it. Please tag me @realfoodeducation on Instagram. And again, if you purchase products directly from the Hu Kitchen site, use my referral code realfoodedu at checkout.