With all the reasons to stress about the upcoming holidays, making an after-dinner treat for a crowd or even a few friends shouldn’t be another.
Luckily, Ashley Cox, baker and owner of Springs Salt, makes a pantry staple (and local favorite) to help move things along in the kitchen, particularly her homemade Oats, Honey n’ Nuts granola, which she neatly packages and sells in shops across the North and South forks (to find some at an East End store near you, click here).
This crunchy combination of cinnamon, oats and honey, loaded with pistachios and almonds, certainly hits all those craveable breakfast notes. But when it’s baked into an apple crisp topping? Now you’ve got a sweet and savory crowd-pleasing dessert.
“I love working with recipes that are a bit more forgiving,” says the self-taught baker known for her simple yet sophisticated breakfast loaves, baked goods, and earthy rye chocolate chip cookies. “If your measurements aren’t perfect, your oven is overloaded and maybe not operating at top efficiency, you’ll still get a great outcome with this crisp, unlike working with fussy cake or pastry recipes.”
With plans to expand into a commercial kitchen in 2025, Cox currently makes all of her baked goods and packaged products out of her home kitchen in Springs with a cottage bakery license, “making those 4 a.m. wakeups on long bake days a bit easier,” she explains.
Born and raised in Midtown Manhattan with memories of neighborhood treats like “black and white cookies and Linzer tarts from Pick-a-Bagel on 57th Street or cheesecake brownie squares from Europa Café,” Cox found herself at a crossroads after nearly a decade of working in technology. “When I started Springs Salt in 2023, I did not have much of a road map for what to do or how to do it, and I’ve been amazed at how month after month — and now in my second year of running Springs Salt — the business continues to grow and become more and more beloved by the people here on the East End,” she says. “I feel so lucky to be a part of it.”
With a lightbulb moment after baking her first apple pie for her boyfriend (now husband), the result being “one thousand times better than any pie I had ever bought,” she says, Cox was hooked studying recipes and obsessing over technique, before finally “settling on my brand of baking: classic, uncomplicated recipes that taste good.”
Keeping that ethos in mind, you’ll need good-tasting apples to start, which you can find locally at Milk Pail U-Pick in Water Mill. “My advice for sourcing apples for this recipe is to go to your local orchard and try a few,” recommends Cox. “Even if a recipe calls for a specific variety of apple, whichever one tastes the best to you that day, that’s what you can throw into your apple crisp,” she continues, “just make sure it’s not a granny smith apple, they take forever to get tender!”
A Southforker tip as we enter the sweets season: do a test run with this one-pan crisp recipe before the holidays, guaranteeing a no-stress approach to any last-minute dessert demands. After all, practice makes perfect! And of course, don’t forget to accompany the warm crisp with a generous scoop of ice cream.
“Just wait for that unmistakable apple-cinnamon scent to fill your kitchen,” says Cox, “and you’ll know you’ve made it right!
Springs Salt’s apple granola crisp
Ingredients
For apple filling:
- 4-5 medium sized apples (or enough to fill a 9-inch pie plate when diced) such as honey crisp or Mcintosh, peeled, cored, cut into ½ inch cubes
- 3 tbsp light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 tbsp lemon juice (about half a lemon)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
For granola crisp topping:
- 1 cup Springs Salt granola (or whatever good granola you have around!)
- 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats (not quick cooking)
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp kosher or sea salt
- 4 tbsp melted butter
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 350° F. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the granola, rolled oats, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. Use a fork to stir until everything is combined.
- Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan (or in the microwave) and pour the melted butter over the granola, oats and flour mixture. Use the same fork to combine until the mixture is fully coated in butter. If there are any dry spots, you can add another ½ tablespoon of melted butter, until the whole mixture is lightly moistened. Place the mixture in the refrigerator while you make the apple filling.
- Start by peeling and cutting each apple into quarters, being careful to remove the core. Dice each quarter apple into ½ inch cubes and add to a large bowl. Next, add the brown sugar, cornstarch, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cloves and mix well. Lastly, add the lemon juice and stir to combine, making sure each piece of apple is coated in the mixture.
- Pour the apple filling into a 9-inch pie dish, making sure to include any juices that may have accumulated at the bottom of the bowl! Top with the granola crisp topping and bake at 350 for 40-50 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the apple filling is bubbling. If the topping begins to darken before the filling is bubbly, add a loose cover of aluminum foil to the crisp for the last 10-20 minutes of baking.
- Allow to stand at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream.
