I absolutely love my mom’s apple crisp, it is one of my favorite things about fall! I have been making my own gluten-free version for a while now and it is so delicious. After I made the vegan apple cobbler two weeks ago with palm oil shortening instead of butter, I decided I wanted to make an updated and healthier version of the apple crisp, too. I’ve actually been calling it Apple Crisp 2.0, but I didn’t think that would make for a good title or dish name. This apple crisp is as healthy as dessert can get in my opinion – it is gluten-free, vegan, refined sugar-free, dairy free, egg free and corn free. Besides using organic all natural palm oil shortening in place of butter in recipes to make them vegan, I have also really fallen in love with baking with coconut oil. When solid, it makes a great replacement for butter in many baking recipes that call for cutting it in. The benefits of coconut oil are numerous and can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc. It is great for your skin and hair when used topically and has been found to have anti-aging, regenerative effects. We even use it topically on and feed it to our dog, Seri, when she has itchy skin. She LOVES the way it tastes.
I was also excited to play with date sugar and maple syrup in this recipe instead of refined white or brown sugar. It turned out so perfectly sweet. Date sugar is totally unprocessed, unrefined and raw. It naturally contains fiber and is loaded with vitamins and minerals like calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, iron, copper, manganese, and selenium. Because date sugar doesn’t melt the way sugar does, I knew I wouldn’t get that delicious syrup with the apples that I usually get with the brown sugar, so that is how I decided to add in the maple syrup. It was such a small amount, you can barely distinguish any maple flavoring, if any at all. Other options instead of the maple syrup would be rice syrup or molasses or if you aren’t vegan, you could also use honey. I am so excited about how this apple crisp turned out. It has so much flavor and I actually think it is better than any apple crisp I have made in the past.
You could serve this with your favorite vegan (or not vegan) ice cream or whipped topping. Something that I saw a while back on Healthful Pursuit that I have been meaning to try is coconut whip, which I think would be perfect on top of this recipe. I may just need to make that happen this week.
Gluten-free Apple Crisp (Vegan)
serves 6
Filling:
- 4 cups of peeled and sliced apples (4 med)
- 2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Topping:
- 1/2 cup blanched almond flour
- 1/2 cup certified gluten-free oats (I like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Rolled Oats)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/3 cup date sugar, coconut sugar or other granulated sugar of your choice
- 1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup (1 for the topping and 1/2 to drizzle over the top)
- 1/3 cup coconut oil (make sure it is somewhat solid and not liquid)
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Place apples in an 8-inch square pan, pour lemon juice over. Add 1 tablespoon of maple syrup, spices and vanilla, toss around to combine.
Mix almond flour, oats, spices, date sugar and maple syrup together in a medium sized mixing bowl. Cut in coconut oil in to make crumbly consistency.
Sprinkle over the apples, drizzle remaining 1/2 tablespoon of maple syrup over top and bake 30-40 minutes or until apples are tender and topping is golden brown. Serve warm.
32 Responses
I love the idea of using block coconut oil instead of butter. Now I can bake something for my vegan neighbor 🙂 Your apple crisp look divine!
Looks delicious!
This looks so good! I love anything apple in the fall, which is good because there is always an overabundance of apples!
Looks divine! Made a crisp yesterday but this one looks much better!
A totaly fab dessert & I would top that with a home made dairy free custard! yummie!
hi there,
I am allergic to almonds, what other kind of flour can I use instead?
thanks,
-Mojdeh
Hey Mojdeh, 1/2 cup of any gluten-free all purpose flour blend will work perfect. I have used it many times, as you can see in my original recipe here http://tasty-yummies.com/2010/09/27/gluten-free-apple-crisp/
Thanks so much.
Thanks 🙂 I used the all-purpose GF flour instead of almond flour, and also since I didn’t have any GF oats, I used buckwheat flakes instead and the result was just awesome! I served it to my non-GF friends for dinner and they all LOVEd it without knowing it was gluten free 😉
cheers,
-Mojdeh
Mojdeh – this is so good to hear. I love the idea of using buckwheat flakes instead of oats, such a fun twist. I am so glad everyone loved it, too.
coconut flour could be an alternative, of buckwheat flower see that both those options are gluten free.
You can also put your oats through grinder, blender, coffee grinder and make oat flour. I use that for gravy sometimes and it works well.
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Try using arrowroot for thickening in place of flour, it is wonderful!
Great idea, I love using arrowroot as a thickener.
This recipe was amazing! I didn’t have date sugar, so I used coconut sugar that I had on hand. Thank you for posting this! 🙂
I just made a small peach crisp using the topping from this recipe. It was delish! Just found your website and I’m really enjoying it.
This looks delicious — think I could omit the oats from the topping and have it still be yummy?
Hmm you can try, but it may lack a bit of substance. Maybe try adding some toasted thin almond slivers and some toasted seeds. Let me know how it turns out if you make it. Thanks!
I made this the minute I saw you posted it. I consider myself an apple crisp snob. This-is divine.
Tried this last night & had it again for breakfast. So delicious! I used maple sugar in place of the date sugar for additional maple-y flavor.
So glad you enjoyed it Amanda. Maple sugar is a great idea. Thanks for sharing.
Please, please don’t use palm oil! Palm oil producers are destroying the forests that are home to endangered orangutans. There are huge campaigns raising awareness of this. Thanks for switching to coconut oil……
And PS….am trying this recipe (above) tonight!
Hi, I just wanted to say that I’ve made your crisp about 5 times and each time it’s so delicious. Thank you for posting!
This recipe is DELICIOUS!!!!