After reading several reviews whose authors appeared to lament the lack of maple taste, I decided to use a darker grade of maple syrup. Typically the lighter grade is what you would find as most commercially available. The darker variety is quite strong tasting (too much for pancakes) but stood up well to the competing flavors.
The result: Outstanding apple crisp with unmistakable pure maple flavor.
I used 1/2 the butter (couldn't bring myself to use 1/4 as often described). I also mixed the dry ingredients (sans oats) with a few pulses in the food processor, with COLD cut butter added right in. I didn't over-over do the food processor (8-10 1 sec pulses) then hand mixed in the oats to keep them whole. This way the butter was really nicely incoporated.
How to make it better? The syrup is a little thin as a medium...I think next time I'll try to add some sort of thickener. One solution might be to finely grate one sacrificial apple and wring out the fluid (apple high in natural pectin) and then add a little acid to activate (maybe bit of lemon juice / zest...I'll have to test), after pre-heating the syrup. Maybe this will cause it to jell slightly, making it less soupy. If this method works in the future, I'll post an update. The crisp portion was spot on and perfect.
So, all in all:
Flavor 5/5
Ease of Recipe: 5/5
Expense: $$$ (maple syrup isn't cheap!)
Consistency: 4/5 (a little too soupy in current form, but this is a minor point. The flavor is the compel
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