Apple Brown Betty

Apple brown betty is an American variant of apple crisp or crumble. Apple brown betty or apple betty is a baked dessert made with apples, crumbs, sugar and cinnamon. Unlike apple crisp, apple crumble and cobbler, apple betty has layers of bread or cake crumbs and apple slices. Incidentally, October 5th is national apple brown betty day.

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I start this week’s blogging marathon with the theme apple desserts. One of the recipes I picked is apple brown betty. The reason being, it is easy to make and ingredients are readily available in any kitchen. The only drawback is, it takes 45 minutes to bake!

If you noticed, the first photo and rest of the photos have different setting and lighting because these were taken on two different days. First was on a rainy day and the rest on another day when it wasn’t raining. As I mentioned in my last post, I am back to blogging after 6+ months and I was going though a blogger’s and a photographer’s block. I kept postponing cooking for the blog till the last-minute and if I did cook for the blog, I was not motivated to take any photos. Hence ended up taking pictures on two different days 🙂 .

As with many recipes, there are many variations to apple betty as well. In fact, some say the original betty recipe has flour in it while some say it has cake or bread crumbs. The recipes I came across that called for flour had a single layer of crumb, just like a crisp or a cobbler, hence I went with a recipe that used bread crumbs and, had layers of crumbs and apple slices.

This is one of those desserts where one can arrange the betty in a pie dish, toss it in the oven, set the meal, eat and cleanup, and the betty is baked in the oven just in time for dessert. Serve with whipped cream or ice-cream or eat it as is! It tasted great as is as well.

Apple Brown Betty Recipe

Adapted: Pioneer Woman
Total Time: 1 hour
Preparation: 10 – 15 minutes
Bake Time: 45 – 50 minutes
Serves: 2 – 3

Ingredients:

• 1 Granny Smith Apple, peeled, cored and sliced
• 2 – 3 Bread Slices (I used 2 ½ slices white sandwich bread)
• ½ cup Dark Brown Sugar
• ¼ cup Salted Butter (I used unsalted butter and sprinkled ⅛ – ¼ tsp salt)
• Cinnamon (I didn’t use)
• 1 tbsp Water
• Small Pie Dish
• Whipped Cream or Ice-Cream for serving

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degree fahrenheit.
• Wash, peel and core the apple. Cut the apple into 8 pieces length wise and slice each piece widthwise. If making twice the recipe in a large pan, cut the apple into 4 and then slice it.
• Chop bread into small pieces or tear into small crumbs or run it in a food processor to make crumbs.
• Grease the pie dish with butter.
• Keep aside a tablespoon of brown sugar. Sprinkle ⅓ of the sugar, followed by ⅓ apple slices and 1/4th of the bread crumbs.
• Repeat the step two more times and top the remaining bread crumbs on the top.
• Slice butter and arrange it on top of the crumbs.
• Sprinkle water, remaining sugar, cover the dish with an aluminum foil and bake in a 375 degree preheated oven for 45 – 50 minutes.
• Few minutes before turning off the oven, approximately 5-7 minutes before, remove the foil and let the top brown.
• Remove from oven, let cool slightly and serve with ice-cream or whipped cream. I served it with Reddi Wip.

Note:

• I used ¼ cup butter (4 tbsp) and felt it was a bit too much. I would use 3 tbsp next time I bake apple betty.
• Apple betty is bit on a sweeter side, yet I liked the sweet and slightly tart apple slices in betty. If one prefers less sweet, I would recommend using 1/3 cup dark brown sugar or use unsweetened whipped creaming when serving.

This day in 2014: Chickpeas Crackers

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM#81