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This recipe for Brown Butter Apple Crisp is the perfect fall dessert. It’s filled with gooey, warm and spiced apples with a delicious brown butter crisp full of old-fashioned oats and soft walnuts. It’s the perfect balance of savory, sweet with our favorite autumnal spices. Serve this warm with cold vanilla ice cream!
I love all things fall! Give me a pumpkin spice latte, an apple cider doughnut muffin and some olive oil eggs on a crisp morning and I’m a happy girl!
I’m not going to lie, before this recipe came along, my favorite apple recipe was my apple cobbler or my homemade apple pie recipe. It’s the perfect easy and lazy autumnal dessert. But so is this one! It has all the delicious things we want in a dessert: brown butter (yum), soft walnuts, warm old fashioned oats and delicious honey crisp apples with all the fall spices.
Ingredients You’ll Need for this Brown Butter Apple Crisp
- Apples. I love using honey crisp apples because they’re easy to find and absolutely delicious in a savory context or sweet.
- Walnuts. It’s not a surprise but walnuts are probably my favorite variety of nut, especially in desserts. They’re soft and have a buttery texture.
- Spices. This is an apple dessert so you know I had to break out the cinnamon and allspice. We’re not going overboard. It’s just the right amount.
- Butter. We’re adding brown butter to the crisp topping. This is going to give us delicious hints of caramel.
For the rest of the ingredients, please see the recipe index card below!
How to Make this Brown Butter Apple Crisp
- Start by making the crisp topping. Mix together all the dry ingredients: walnuts, brown sugar, old-fashioned oats, all-purpose flour and a pinch of salt.
2. In a saucepan, cube up the butter and set it over medium heat. Cook the butter, stirring it often, until it gets all foamy and the milk solids begin to brown. It should look like this (below) when it’s done.
3. Pour the brown butter into the dry ingredients.
4. And give it a thorough mix. It will taste delicious. Try not to eat it. Set it aside while we make the filling.
5. Peel and slice up your apples. You could do cubes too. I personally love a sliced apple because it reminds me of homemade apple pie. But you do you!
6. Mix the sliced apples with brown sugar, flour, spices and a pinch of salt.
7. Mix up the apples being sure they’re all evenly coated.
8. Pour them into your 2 quart baking dish (you can also use an 8×8-inch baking pan).
9. Add the crisp topping on top of the apples and make sure it’s all in an even layer. Transfer to the oven to bake until the apples are all gooey and bubbling. It should take close to an hour.
Recipe Tip
- Different nuts to use. If you don’t have or like walnuts, you can replace them with pecans! It would almost taste have butter pecan vibes (similar to this butter pecan pie.) YUM!
- Different apple varietals. Any baking apple would be great. Such as granny smith, gala, golden delicious or braeburn. If you do use granny smith, I would combine it with another sweeter varietal of apple.
Recipe FAQs
I would say you can definitely prep the topping ahead and stick it in the fridge. The butter will harden but don’t worry, it’ll soften when it hits the oven. You can prep the filling but I would add the juice from 1/2 lemon so that the apples don’t turn brown.
You can make it gluten-free by using a gluten-free all-purpose flour in place of the wheat flour the recipe calls for. Should work out great!
What to Serve with this Brown Butter Apple Crisp
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Brown Butter Apple Crisp
Equipment
- 1 (2-quart) baking dish (or an 8×8 square baking pan)
Ingredients
Crisp Topping:
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 (55 g) cup old-fashioned oats
- 1/2 (104 g) cup brown sugar
- 1/2 (65 g) cup finely chopped walnuts
- Pinch kosher salt
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
Filling:
- 4 large honeycrisp apples, (about 2 1/4 lbs)
- 1/3 (69 g) cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
- Pinch kosher salt
Instructions
To Make the Crisp Topping:
- Start by preheating your oven to 350ยบF and prepping the dry ingredients for the topping. In a medium size bowl mix together the flour, oats, brown sugar, chopped walnuts, and pinch of salt.
- Cube up butter. In a small saucepan, set over medium heat, add the cubed butter. Once itโs melted, it will begin to foam up and bubble a bit. Allow it to cook until you begin to see lightly browned specks beginning to form. Give it a stir and cook until itโs browned.
- Pour the browned butter and all the brown bits at the bottom of the pan over the dry ingredients and stir together until everything is combined and slightly crumbly. Set aside.
To Make the Filling:
- Peel, core and slice the apples into 1/4" slices and add to a bowl. Toss the apple slices with the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, allspice, and salt until all the apple slices are evenly coated.
- Spray a 2 quart baking dish (or an 8" square baking dish works perfectly). Add all the apples and any juices and evenly level them in the dish. Crumble up the crisp topping and add it evenly over the top, it's going to seem like way too much and but's ok; it'll cook down in the oven.
- Place the baking dish on a parchment lined baking just in case anything bubbles over and bake in the preheated oven for 55-65 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbly.
- Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Iโve made this twice now and we absolutely love it! I add a little more walnuts for a crunchier topping and spices for more flavoring. Definitely has become a go to dessert and will be bringing it to parties! Pairs very well with the vanilla ice cream, but also tastes great without!
Hi Sarah, I love hearing this!! I love the additions you made too. Cooking/baking is all about making things your own! ๐
Made this last night and it was such a hit! The apples were soooo soft and gooey. I didnโt use walnuts in the topping but it didnโt impact the crumble at all in my opinion, but I like my crisp with more apples than crumble. Super easy weeknight dessert.
Hi Nadia! So glad you loved it. Thanks for the feedback ๐