Apple Crisp

This is a twist on the recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book, which has great recipes, by the way.  :)  It's the Apple Crisp recipe, but I thought I'd throw some marzipan into it for some added decadence.

First you prepare the fruit filling:

Then you use it in the crisp recipe:

Stacey's altered Fruit Filling ingredients:
7 granny smith apples, organic (peeled, chopped into 1/2" cubes)
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tbs dark brown sugar, organic
1 tbs white sugar, organic

Stacey's altered Crisp ingredients:
3/4 cup whole raw almonds (local from farmers' market)
3.4 oz marzipan (I used 33% almond version from The Gourmet Corner), cut into little cubes
1/2 c unbleached white flour, organic
2 tbs dark brown sugar, organic
1/4 c white sugar, organic
1-2 tsp cinnamon, Saigon (from Costco)
1/8 tsp nutmeg (whole nutmeg, freshly grated with a rasp)
1/2 tsp sea salt, fine
4 tbs unsalted butter, organic (1/2 stick)

I've made this recipe before, and I felt the juice should be a little thicker so I increased the cornstarch from the recommended 1 tsp to 2 tsp.  I also used brown sugar for 1/2 the sugar amount, versus all white.

I've found the best way to cut apples is to peel them first:

Then slice them in half, and I use a trick that an old co-worker taught me.  

Use a melon baller to get the seed portion out:

Then once you cut the remainder of the core out, slice vertically, then horizontally:

I mixed all the dry ingredients together and then pour it over the apples in the glass baking dish I'm baking the crisp in.  Granny Smiths are pretty sour already so I eliminated the lemon juice for this recipe.  [I made it before with honey crisp apples (which are pretty sweet, and also not very crunchy so I was just trying to use them up with this recipe) and I added probably a lemon's worth of lemon juice to it. ]

After it's all mixed, I covered the baking dish with foil and baked it at 400F for 20 minutes.

While that was baking, I prepared the crisp.  First I toasted the whole almonds (350F in the toaster oven for 10 minutes).  The original recipe calls for sliced almonds, but I had whole.  I mixed them with all the dry ingredients, including the marzipan cubes.

Uncut slice from marzipan slab:

 Cubed:

Then I melted the butter in the microwave and poured it over the dry ingredients.  I mixed it all up with a fork. 

Once the apples were done in the oven, I took the glass dish out, stirred gently, like the instructions say, and crumbled the crisp over the top of the apples.  Back into the oven for another 20-25 minutes and you get this lovely, bubbly crisp:

I made this in Tahoe for a bunch of friends - I think it all got eaten and was reheated a few times. :)  However, I cut all the apples at home and subsequently left them in the fridge, so I will probably make this again shortly with a little lemon juice.  I think it could use a little additional tartness, but really doesn't need it.