SK week 48 | Apple Cranberry Crisp

Happy Black Friday! Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful! My Thanksgiving included this crisp, and I have mixed feelings about it. But we'll get there. ;) I needed to bring a gluten-free dessert, and I had been wanting to make this anyway, so it worked out.

(Here's the Smitten Kitchen post)

You'll need:
Topping:
1 teaspoon aniseed (I couldn't find this and skipped it--I'll also skip it in the directions, so make sure you click on her post if you want to include it)
1 1/2 cups pastry flour (I used gluten free flour, and this may have been a problem with the final product...you'll see)
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into cubes
1 egg, beaten
Filling:
2 cups fresh cranberries
1/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 pounds granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For topping:
Place flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt in food processor. Pulse to combine.

Add butter and pulse until it's a sandy consistency.

Pour into a bowl and mix in the beaten egg.

Set aside.

For filling:
Preheat oven to 375. Combine cranberries, white sugar, brown sugar, lemon peel, orange peel, cinnamon, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

Toss to combine.

Add apples and lemon juice.

Stir.

Pour into baking dish.

Top with crumble topping.

Bake at 375 for about an hour.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Verdict: It was fine. I was bummed that it wasn't better than fine. The topping threw me off BIG time. For comparison's sake, here is what Deb's finished product looks like:

Not even close to how mine looked. My topping was super dry, and I could tell that when it went in the oven, but I (wrongly) assumed it would all work itself out while it baked. It did not. The topping was still pretty dry and also really thick. In Deb's, I can see her apples and cranberries through the topping. I could not on mine (except for the edges where it bubbled up).

The main difference was the flour--she called for pastry, but I needed to make it gluten free. I maybe should have used less. Maybe another egg would have added enough moisture. Or more butter. I don't know.

I did really like the apple cranberry filling, so I think next time I would just do a classic topping with a little flour, oats, brown sugar, and butter. In fact, I still have apples and cranberries, and I may just have to redeem this experience sometime this weekend. ;)

Also, I have no one else's opinion because I was the only one who ate it. I was the only one gluten free (my GF kids were at home with strep throat), and there were literally five other desserts. :)

So this was a bit of a fail, but there haven't been too many of those, which is saying a lot for week 48!