The Best Apple Crisp

Pie is great. Go ahead, you make it.

Me? I'll be here with crisp—and I'm asking you to join me.

Among baked fruit desserts, pie has a way of hogging the spotlight. And I get it. The buttery, flaky crust. The meticulous construction. The ample—ample—American tradition behind it all. This is all very nice.

Yet pie is also, even for the seasoned baker, a chore to make. (Okay, I'll be friendly and call it "involved.") There is dough to make (but not over-mix!), and roll (but not too much!), and shape (you'd better nail that rustic, almost-perfect shape!). Pie is great. But even with Kenji's easy pie crust recipe or Stella's old-fashioned, no-food-processor-required pie dough, pie is a pain in the tuches.

Now, what do we want from our fruit desserts? I want fruit, front and center, and plenty of it. I want butter. I want crackle and crunch. And I want a hint of spice—just enough to make the fruit taste even more like itself.

Crisp does it all. In a fraction of the time it takes to make pie, with an even smaller fraction of the work. There's more fruit, more flavor and texture in the buttery/carb-y layer of good stuff, and you can begin making one from scratch and have dessert ready in an hour. Show me a pie crust that offers you the same courtesy.

So let's make some crisp.

In Search of the Perfect Crisp Topping

In the sordid world of fruit-dessert taxonomy, a "crisp" is distinct from cobblers, crunches, and crumbles. Cobblers rely on some kind of dough. Crumbles call specifically for oats. Crunch prefers bread crumbs.

But crisp—crisp can use nuts, and that's where things get interesting. Because nothing complements fruit like toasted nuts. (Yes, butter, too. That's a given.)

For years, I've relied on a wonderful crisp template from one of the best chefs I know: Suzanne Drexhage, who's put in plenty of time at Berkeley, California's Chez Panisse and now helms the kitchen of Bartavelle cafe and wine bar.

Suzanne's crisp topping relies on pecans (the best nut), lemon zest, and plenty of salt for a balance of toasted and light flavors that do wonders for all kinds of fruit, but especially apples. You build it in a food processor, and it's ready to bake in mere minutes. As with all genius techniques, it's versatile: the only crisp topping you'll ever need.

Over the years, I've taken liberties with her recipe, making it more and more my own, but until recently, I'd never tested it in a particularly rigorous way. I figured it was finally time to break the topping down, element by element, and see how to make it the best damned crisp topping it could possibly be. Let's take a look.

The Nuts

If you're looking for deep, toasted flavor and satisfying crunch, no good ol' American nut matches pecans. There's not much to figure out here, except the fact that pecan halves are generally preferable to chopped-up bits when you're out shopping (the former stay fresh longer). There's also the question of whether you should bother toasting the nuts before baking.

You should. Toasting your pecans—which, for this recipe, you can do in the oven while it preheats—gives them an incomparable depth of flavor. The crisp will taste fine without toasted pecans, but this one step helps them announce themselves in the final product.

The Butter

For our purposes here, is there any difference between plain American unsalted butter and higher-fat, slightly tangy, fancy European butter?

I baked up two batches of crisp and let (blind) tasters tell me. The verdict? Our recipe expert Daniel definitely preferred the crisp made with Plugra butter, a standard-bearer of the European set, but others were less sure of the differences.

I'd say fancier butter adds a small flavor bonus to your crisp. If you love your butter and don't mind spending the extra cash, go for it and gild the lily. But if you'd rather save the good stuff for spreading on toast, the crisp won't turn out any worse.

The Sugar

There are a dozen sugar varieties you could try out for crisp, but in major supermarkets you have four choices: plain white, light brown, dark brown, and (the bougie option) raw.

Different kinds of raw sugar exist all over the world, but the type with the most standardized production process, and the one you're most likely to see in American groceries, is "turbinado." It's a coarse, crystalline ingredient that's less refined than white or brown sugar, and its molasses impurities give it a delicate toffee-caramel flavor that I love for giving desserts a subtle dose of depth. (Brown sugar is actually made by dosing refined white sugar with molasses.)

What sugar is best for crisp? White sugar produces a bland, tooth-achingly sweet topping. Brown sugar—both light and dark—fares better, but they pile on strong, tangy molasses notes that I think distract from the fruit underneath. Raw sugar offers what I'd consider the best balance of unrefined complexity and clean flavor—it supports the fruit without overwhelming it.

Though I'd be remiss not to mention that several of the Serious Eats tasting panel preferred light brown sugar to the raw stuff—they just dug the rich, intense holiday flavor it brought to the apples. I disagree with them, but if you want that darker flavor in your crisp, feel free to substitute an equal amount of brown sugar in this recipe.

The Spice

Lemon zest is a crisp game-changer, adding citrus lightness and fragrance to an otherwise heavy dessert. Don't be shy about it: A whole tablespoon of lemon zest isn't too much.

As for spices, cinnamon and clove are both bossy animals—not what you want for a go-anywhere, do-anything crisp topping. At home, my go-to is mace, a spice that's related to nutmeg but, to my mind, blows it out of the water. Imagine a cross between nutmeg and coriander, tinged with citrus and cinnamon. Add to that the same nostril-widening properties that nutmeg, mint, and basil share, and then add the complexity of raw sugar. That's mace.

If you can find mace (it's plentiful online), I'd suggest seeking it out. But if you don't want to place an online order just to eat some apple crisp, nutmeg is just peachy: assertive, but smart enough not to trample over other ingredients.

But perhaps the most important spice to keep in mind for crisp is salt, and plenty of it. Crisp is sweet business, and if you want to fully taste the fruit, nuts, lemon, butter, sugar, and spice that will all be competing for your attention, you gotta be generous with the salt.

Putting It All Together

Once you've figured out your crisp components, putting it together is a snap (which is more than I can say for a certain other dessert). This recipe is easy enough to commit to memory, and fast enough, with a food processor's help, to assemble before your kitchen helper can finish prepping the fruit.

And I do mean any fruit. When it's fall, I'm sticking with apples, but peaches, blueberries, rhubarb, plums, nectarines, and more are all totally compatible with this topping.

Measure the Dry Ingredients

Measure out your pecans and get them toasting. Then weigh your flour and sugar. Yes, weigh—making crisp doesn't have to be an exact process, but all baking is improved by measuring in grams or ounces, not cups or quarts, and a kitchen scale is well worth the small investment.

Add your lemon zest, nutmeg, and salt, then transfer the whole mixture to the food processor, and pulse it a couple times to combine everything evenly.

Add the Pecans

Don't bother chopping up your toasted pecans; add them right to the machine, and pulse just a couple times so they start to break down. You still have more pulsing to go, so a few whole pecan halves right now are exactly what you want.

Add the Butter

Cut your chilled butter into small cubes, and pulse it in the food processor for just a few seconds, until the mixture starts to come together in a shaggy, mealy mass. The texture you're looking for is diverse particle sizes, but no full cubes of butter. At this stage, you'll get a crisp full of textural contrast, but with integrated flavor. Pulse any longer, and you risk a sticky dough that'll be too smooth to crackle in the oven.

Once your topping is ready, you can chill it in the fridge or freezer until you're ready to bake. It'll keep in a sealed container for days.

Prep Your Fruit

Crisp shouldn't distract you from the fresh, clean flavor of fruit, so go light with your additions. When I'm feeling lazy, I'll just add some salt and booze (more on that in a minute) and get baking. But unless you make some alterations, doing so will get you a watery layer of apples swimming in juices. For a tighter fruit layer, add some cornstarch and sugar to bind the juices into a light gel.

Thanks to Kenji's efforts, we know that Golden Delicious apples turn meaty, not mushy, when baked, and they're your best bet if you're using a single apple in pie or crisp.

I stick to Golden Delicious apples...for the most part, but sometimes I'll sneak in a firmer, more tart apple, like a Fuji or a Jonagold, for just a little contrast. The choice here is yours. Oh, and don't bother peeling—peels add a welcome jolt of tartness and astringency.

About that booze, though: Nothing amps up the flavor of a crisp like a shot or two of brown liquor. Applejack, bourbon, rye, even Scotch (bear in mind that this one adds lots of smoke, too) all play well here, delivering caramel and vanilla notes more effectively than vanilla extract ever could. A light hand with the hooch ensures the crisp won't taste boozy—just better.

Lay on the Topping

With your fruit prepped, all you need to do now is top it and bake it. For a light, crackly texture in your topping, don't press it deep into the fruit. Just spoon it out, nice and easy, and spread it to the edges of the baking dish in a roughly even layer. Some imperfections are just fine. Remember: We're not making pie. We don't need it to look pretty.

Bake It

Your crisp is done when the topping is sandy, dry, and firm to the touch, without any mushy spots. Once the crisp is ready, do yourself a favor and let it cool for at least 15 minutes before digging in. The juices in the fruit layer need time to settle, and the crust will turn even firmer and crackly with time.

And there you have it. A crumbly, buttery topping full of contrasting flavors and textures, soft fruit, notes of lemon and nutmeg and caramel...yeah, this'll do.

Pie, you've been swell, but I think we should see other people.