Apple Betty
As the sun is setting earlier and earlier, I am finding some comfort in the kitchen with baking all types of fall-ish treats. I have Jane Soudah’s Pumpkin Bread on repeat here complete with the rosemary sea salt sprinkled on top…it really does make the traditional pumpkin bread so unique and extra yummy. Take my word for it and try it. Chop the rosemary and then sprinkling our pure sea salt in a small dish then you rub the rosemary and our sea salt together between your fingertips….and voila - a little cathartic, a little piney Maine aroma, and oh, so on another level delicious pumpkin bread.
I have also been baking Anzac cookies from Pastry Love complete with currants because I need to use those little devils up from another recipe…and surprisingly I really love those small jammy little nuggets in my oatmeal cookies. Now, I won’t go all brazen and put plumpy raisins in everywhere now…no way. I think I had way too many of those Sunmaid mini red paper boxes of raisins in my lunchbox growing up…that and an appearance by tuna fish sandwiches here and there….gah, I digress.
Then there's my apple desserts. First, let me wax on about our local Barden Family Orchard’s Macoun apples - life changing. And you really do not need to smother these delicious apples with anything else other than just biting into these fall gems and be rewarded first by their aroma and then a ‘sweet and tart flavor with floral and berry-like undertones’.…but I did buy a bushel of them and want to marry them up with everything, that is, except raisins. ;)
Okay, so next up is my Apple Betty recipe. Over 20 years ago, I copied my mom’s well loved Apple Betty recipe onto a small scrap of paper and placed in my binder of favorite recipes sourced from family and friends. Every fall, I pull out this well-worn recipe tucked safely beneath a page protector and my ‘borrowed’ Apple Betty pie plate from my mom to make this incredibly delicious and comforting apple dessert. I love it and so does my family, but since I’m the baker, I get to savor that first, deliciously piping-hot apples and cinnamon bite. Okay, you got me, it’s not a bite - it’s a spoonful…a very large spoonful! Happy Autumn baking to you!
PS: I realized as I am preparing to write this recipe that I only wrote the ingredients and not the directions that I have ingrained in my memory. So, I will do my best to include all the steps. If you have any questions, just email me at newportseasalt@gmail.com with the email title - Apple Betty help and I will be right over with a spoon!
APPLE BETTY (Or I should name it after my mom, Judy, as I learned this from her.)
INGREDIENTS:
4 cups of sliced Apples (preferably from your local Farmer’s market)
1/4 cup of Orange Juice or squeezed freshly from an orange or a lemon would work!
3/4 cup of flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp of nutmeg
dash of our sea salt broken with your fingertips or use your baking salt.
1/2 cup of unsalted butter cut into small pieces
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and have your pie plate or ceramic dish ready.
Combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a dash of sea salt (I take our sea salt and break it with my fingertips.) and whisk together to combine.
Cut the 1/2 cup of butter into small pieces and combine into the flour and sugar mixture. With clean fingertips, I rub the butter and flour and sugar mixture together and set aside.
Next, slice the 4 cups of apples and place in the pie plate.
Sprinkle the orange juice or freshly squeezed orange over the apples.
Then take the buttery flour sugar mixture and pour over the apples and orange juice.
Place this pie plate on a baking sheet to prevent from spillage into your oven from the juicy apples and place on the middle rack of your oven to bake for 45 minutes.
Once out of the oven, you can finish the top with a little sprinkle of our pure flaky sea salt.
Now, enjoy that first spoonful of Apple Betty! We do enjoy this dessert topped with vanilla ice cream. I am sure it would be even more delicious with homemade salted caramel and vanilla ice cream!