The super simple recipe has been my standby since childhood.
I was born under a good sign. On the day of the cesarean section that brought me into the world, Eddie McCormick made a special delivery to my mom at the hospital. The head of food and beverage at Greenwich Country Day School (GCDS) in Connecticut was best known for one dish: his apple crisp. This dessert welcomed me into the school community where my father taught upper school art and where I would spend eight of my most formative years.
From the time that I began my tenure at GCDS in first grade, the family-style meals in the dining hall enchanted me. (We never called it a cafeteria.) Teachers or visiting parents sat at the head of the table, presiding over their assigned group of students, which rotated every two weeks. For those weeks, one child would be assigned to the role of waiter, bringing food from the kitchen to the table and back again. Another was the sub-waiter, the most dreaded position, which meant scraping everyone's plates.
McCormick elevated our dining above typical school food. Popular dishes included turkey à la king, buttery grilled cheese with tomato soup, and something called Jacks & Jills—French bread topped with sloppy Joe meat and cheese, then broiled. I always looked forward to "Chicken Roundup," when the staff would combine leftover barbecue chicken, cutlets, and other preparations, with a side of buttered egg noodles.
But the most sought-after dish in the chef's arsenal was doubtless his apple crisp. Sometimes it was served with vanilla ice cream, which the teacher at the table scooped onto each of their charges' portions of apples and oats. Later in my time at the school, it became more common to see the piping-hot dessert paired with warm hard sauce. To this day, I make it with the latter.
That's because Eddie McCormick's apple crisp is still my favorite dessert to craft at home. While my friends consider me an accomplished cook who's mastered everything from 72-hour fermented pizza dough to a roasted chicken worthy of Plato's cave, baking cakes and cookies makes me anxious. The super simple recipe, which I've amended to include cinnamon, has been my standby since elementary school.
That's because in 1992, GCDS mothers and staff collected their favorite recipes into a ring-bound cookbook entitled "Country Days and Nights" to benefit the performing and visual arts departments. Not surprisingly for the upscale suburb, the dishes in the 180 pages range from a caviar-egg-avocado mold and lobster mousse to more plebeian fare like my own mother's rice-speckled "porcupine" meatballs.
My husband is admittedly the baker in the house—his rose-and-pistachio chiffon cake was unforgettable—but when more than just the savory courses fall to me, especially in autumn, I whip up the dish referred to in "Country Days and Nights" as "a GCDS lunchroom favorite." Page 111 is irrevocably dusted with cinnamon now, more than forty years since the sweet oats and apples introduced me to comfort food.
I was born into the recipe. But even cooks who weren't will find this classic becoming a part of their regular rotation.
How To Make Greenwich Country Day School Apple Crisp
Ingredients
Crisp:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, plus more for greasing
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- 2 pounds tart cooking apples (about 6 medium apples)
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Sauce:
- 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 pinch salt
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9-inch baking dish with butter.
- Combine 1/2 cup butter, brown sugar, white sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a bowl until rice-sized pieces form; mix in rolled oats. Set aside.
- Peel, quarter, and slice apples into the prepared baking dish. Level; pat down firmly.
- Sprinkle apples with lemon juice; top with oat mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven until apples are tender, about 30 minutes.
- Combine confectioners' sugar and 1/2 butter in a bowl until smooth; stir in vanilla extract and salt. Serve over apple crisp.
Read the original article on Allrecipes
