It sounded like a good idea. It really did. At the beginning of this little escapade, my friend Sarah made an excellent suggestion for using all those cranberries and that mountain of granola: a delicious cranberry crisp. "You mean a cobbler?" I said. "No, a crisp."
Ok, food dictionary time. After a bit of searching the interwebz, I share my new knowledge with you. Not everyone seems to agree on every term but here's the general idea:
Cobbler: A deep-dish fruit dessert with a fruit filling and a thick, usually biscuity crust on top. The crust can be solid or can be spoon-dropped in pieces, which end up looking like cobblestones.
Crisp: Same deal, but with a more crumbly topping -- bread crumbs, cookie crumbs, graham cracker crumbs, or breakfast cereal (and that includes granola, yo).
Crumble: A crisp with a Union Jack flying over it. (It's the same thing as a crisp, but British. God save the queen.)
Grunt: You know I had to throw this one in there. It's so "That's what she said." Basically, a grunt is a cobbler that's stewed instead of baked (most often in a cast iron skillet) and supposedly it makes a grunting noise when cooked, hence the name. Also referred to in some parts as a slump, but that's so depressing. Makes me think of a dead body on CSI, all slumped over and--
Oh, yes, back to the cooking. Call it what you will, but since we're in the good ol' US of A, we're going to call it a crisp.
INGREDIENTS:
6 cups fresh cranberries
1 giant apple and 1 small apple* (or 3 small apples)
1 cup cranberry juice
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp Splenda for Baking
7 tbsp white sugar
12 oz maple crunch granola
*For those of you keeping track (and if you're eyeing my list this closely, you have bigger problems), I got that other little apple as a side at Panera.
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cut apples into chunks about the size of 2-3 cranberries.
3. In a large bowl combine cranberries, apples, cranberry juice, Splenda, and sugar. Pour into baking dish and pat down.
4. Cover with granola, patting down until firm.
5. Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until filling is bubbly.
To give credit where credit is due, I nabbed the original recipe from Oprah.com and went from there with what I had.
Eh. I wouldn't call it bad, but I wouldn't call it good either. And let's call a spade a spade -- it was totally the Splenda that did it. The fruit was way too tart and the sugar I added wasn't in the original recipe; it was a last-ditch effort to safe the poor thing. (Also, I'm told orange juice would have been a better choice than cranberry, but you can blame Ms. Winfrey's minions for that.) Now, I'm pretty sure you all saw that coming and, honestly, I kind of did too. But this is about experimenting! Plus, wouldn't you rather leave me with the train wreck so you can learn from my fail? That's what I thought.
Official Grade: C
Your Challenge: Nice and simple -- create a cranberry crisp that doesn't suck the big one. And for those of you just itching to give me your Grandmammy's secret cobbler, crisp, crumble, or grunt recipe (hell, even a buckle or a pandowdy), send it my way and share the love.
Update: After digging in to the freezer for the remainder of this concoction, I realized I might have been a little too harsh the first time around. It was more of a B- considering I ate all of it.
