Nov 10, 2010
First off, (and I mean this in a polite way) for those of you saying there's no sense in doing this in a crock pot when you have the do the work either way with the apples, you are missing the point of having a crock pot in the first place. It frees up your time so that you do not have to keep such a watchful eye on it. My husband had to go work this morning, on a Sunday, and so he just switched on my crock pot for me when he left the house. Everything was already in there...and when I woke up, I had fresh apple crisp, already cooked and just waiting to be eaten. Moving on...this turned out perfectly! I left my apples in slices since they were small apples. I also adjusted this recipe to be gluten free and free of refined sugars. I actually mixed the walnuts in with the apples rather than the topping. And I used xylitol in place of sugar, adding some molasses to the crumb topping to add the richness of brown sugar. I don't care for ginger in my desserts, so I just used cinnamon and nutmeg for the spices. I also used a lot less sweeteners...only about 1/4 cup of xylitol in the apples and 1/3 cup in the crumb topping, with about 1/4 cup of the molasses. I also omitted the cornstarch and just used a few Tbsp. of GF baking mix. I used Earth Balance in place of butter, and it works great. I can tell you the taste is the same, even with my changes. I've made apple crisps the way as printed before going GF. They are both great.
—Trish