Apple Crisp with Salted Caramel Sauce

For our second round of the Monthly Ingredient Challenge, Cat from The Rustic Willow chose apples! (You can read about our first Monthly Ingredient Challenge here.)

Apples are a great choice because they are versatile and pair equally well with both sweet and savory dishes. For this month’s challenge I chose to make one of my favorite desserts- Apple Crisp with Salted Caramel Sauce! It’s also Day 12 of the #EatLean2015 series.

I love this dessert because it’s healthy, easy to toss together, and well, let’s face it… salted caramel sauce is simply divine! Sweet apples are tossed with honey and spices and then baked until tender. Then everything gets coated with a crumbly topping that bakes up nice and crisp. But it’s that salted caramel sauce that sends everything over the top and brings the flavors all together.

It’s naturally gluten free and contains no refined sugar, which means you don’t need to feel guilty about eating a giant bowlful of it while doing homework, right?!

It’s a good thing that it’s quick and easy to prepare because I am in way over my head with a huge grad school project right now. It’s left me with almost no time for anything fun (insert sad face). Although I know it will be worth it when I graduate in just a few short weeks, it’s hard right now to balance all of the competing interests in my life. That said, today’s post is going to be a bit shorter than usual and I’m going to let the pictures tell the story.

Below are the apple inspired recipes from my fellow Monthly Ingredient Challenge bloggers. They are a talented bunch and these dishes look amazing! I hope you take a minute to check them out and Pin those that you love (or Pin them all, that’d be even better)! We’ll be showcasing our Monthly Ingredient Challenge recipes on the 25th of each month, so be sure to come back to see what we’ve cooked up next time.

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Apple Crisp with Salted Caramel Sauce
Author: Christin @ Blue Crab Martini
Recipe type: Dessert

A delicious, gluten free dessert that’s refined sugar free!
Ingredients
For the Apples:
6 organic apples, chopped
1 TBS coconut sugar
1 TBS cinnamon
Freshly grated nutmeg
1 TBS honey
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
For the Crisp Topping:
2 cups organic old-fashioned oats
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped
pinch of salt
¼ cup coconut sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 TBS cinnamon
6 TBS organic unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces
For the Salted Caramel Sauce:
For the Caramel Sauce:
I really love the paleo caramel sauce recipe found on Living Healthy with Chocolate. This recipe uses coconut sugar and coconut milk instead of traditional caramel ingredients- tasty and healthy! Of course, you can use any caramel sauce recipe that works for you. Find the recipe here: http://bit.ly/1A7F1K3
Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375*.
In a bowl, combine the apples, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, coconut sugar, and vanilla.Gently stir until the apples are evenly coated.
Place into a 9½” pie dish (or similar sized baking dish), and pop into the oven for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes give them a little stir and place back into the oven for another 15-20 minutes, or until the apples are nice and tender. Meanwhile, move on to making the crisp topping.
In a separate bowl, combine all of the ingredients for the crisp topping. Using your hands (this is truly the easiest way), work the butter through the oats and pecans until it forms small crumbs.
Once the apples have finished baking, remove them from the oven and cover with the crisp topping. Place back into the oven and bake for only 3-4 minutes. This gives the crip topping the perfect texture without becoming too dry.
Serve warm with a drizzle of the Paleo Caramel Sauce found here