Low Carb Apple Crisp

Introduction

Real Granny Smith apples, cut into wedges and cooked down in browned butter with cinnamon, under a craggy almond-flour crumb. The butter gets browned twice in this recipe — once for the filling and once for the topping — and that is most of why it tastes the way it does.

The swaps are the ordinary ones: almond flour instead of wheat for the crumb, a monk fruit blend instead of sugar, and a half teaspoon of xanthan gum to keep the topping bound but still crumbly. What is not swapped is the fruit. These are apples, and apples bring carbohydrate with them, which is the honest trade this recipe makes.

Key Ingredients and Tools

Apples

Four apples, about a pound and a half between them, which is what the Nutrition Facts panel is calculated on. Granny Smith is what we use — tart enough to stand up to half a cup of sweetener, and firm enough to hold its shape through a skillet and an oven.

Cut them into wedges rather than thin slices. Twenty minutes in the oven on top of five in the skillet is a long time for an apple, and wedges come out of it still recognizably apple.

You can peel them or leave the skins on. Adding more apples is the one change worth thinking about before you make it, because apples are where the carbohydrate in this dish comes from — another one adds its own to every slice, and more liquid to the dish along with it.

If you would rather have berries than apples, our keto berry cobbler bakes raspberries and blackberries under an almond-flour topping in one small skillet.

Lakanto Monk Fruit Sweetener

As our sugar replacement, we’ll use Lakanto’s Classic monk fruit sweetener, the white granulated one. It is formulated as a 1:1 sugar replacement, making it easier to adapt traditional apple crisp recipes.

We’ll be using it for the apple filling and the crisp that goes on top.

Cinnamon

A tablespoon of it goes into the filling, which is a lot of cinnamon for four apples - enough to stand up to Granny Smiths rather than sit politely behind them.

Almond Flour

Blanched rather than meal. Almond meal is a coarser grind with the skins still in it, so it is not a like-for-like swap here.

Xanthan Gum

Half a teaspoon, and it goes in the topping rather than the filling. It is easy to overlook in an ingredient list and it is not optional - we do not have a version of the topping without it.

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Low Carb Apple Crisp

11 net carbs

(184)

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

25 minutes

Total Time

35 minutes

Yield

10 slices

Course

Dessert

Cuisine

American

Ingredients

Apple Filling

• 4x apple, peeled or unpeeled, cut into wedges - about 1.5 lb / 730 g in total
• 4 oz butter, unsalted
• ½ cup lakanto classic monkfruit sweetener
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp cinnamon, ground

Crisp Topping

• 3 oz butter, unsalted
• 1 ½ cups almond flour
• ½ cup lakanto classic monkfruit sweetener
• ½ tsp xanthan gum
• A pinch of salt

Nutrition Facts

10 servings per recipe

Calories	Per Serving 290		Per Recipe 2910
Total Fat	25g	32%	253g	325%
Saturated Fat	11g	53%	106g	528%
Trans Fat	0g	0%	0g	0%
Cholesterol	43mg	14%	425mg	142%
Sodium	0mg	0%	10mg	0%
Total Carbohydrate	34g	12%	336g	122%
Dietary Fiber	3g	12%	35g	125%
Total Sugars	9g		89g
Sugar Alcohols	19g		192g
Allulose	0g	0%	0g	0%
Net Carbohydrates	11g		109g
Protein	4g	8%	38g	77%

About these numbers: We are home cooks, not certified nutritionists. Nutrition is shared as a courtesy. We pick a representative product for each ingredient, and our recipe system works out the totals from the amounts in this recipe, so please treat them as a helpful estimate rather than a guarantee. The brands you buy, any swaps you make, and how generously you portion the recipe will all move these numbers.

Directions

1. Cut 4 apples into wedges.

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   Wedges rather than thin slices - that is what the photographs show, and what holds its shape through five minutes in the skillet and twenty in the oven. Peel them first if you want them peeled; the pictures here leave the skins on. Four apples is roughly 1.5 lb or 730 g, and the Nutrition Facts panel is calculated for that. Apples are the carbohydrate in this dish, so every extra one adds its own to the per-slice figures and puts more liquid in the dish.

2. Using a skillet, brown your butter for the apple filling.

   You may use salted butter or unsalted butter. You should pour in 4 ounces of butter and let it cook for a while until it turns golden brown. Browning your butter will provide your apple crisp with a nutty and bold flavor.

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3. Add the Lakanto monk fruit sweetener to the browned butter, then the apple wedges and vanilla extract, then the cinnamon.

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5. Cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring periodically.

   This allows the wedges to soften and the mixture to thicken and coat the apples, giving the filling a gooey texture.

6. Transfer the apple filling to a baking dish or clear pie plate.

   The photographs show a round dish. We do not have its exact size, so go by depth rather than a number - the filling wants to sit in an even layer with room for the topping above it, not be heaped. Set aside for now as you make the crisp topping.

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7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

   The next few steps make the crisp topping.

8. Using a skillet, brown the butter for the crumble.

   You should pour in 3 ounces of butter. Cook it for a while until it turns golden brown. Do not cook it over high heat, or it may burn.

10. In a mixing bowl, pour in all the other ingredients for making the crisp topping.

    Add in the almond flour, Lakanto monk fruit sweetener, and xanthan gum. Add salt to taste.

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11. Once the melted butter has turned golden brown, pour it into the mixing bowl with the other ingredients.

    Stir gently to distribute the browned butter throughout the dry ingredients.

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12. Mix all the ingredients until small clumps form.

    Using a fork or spatula, gently mix your crisp topping ingredients. Stop mixing once small clumps form.

13. Sprinkle the crisp topping over the apple filling, covering all the apples.

    Put the baking dish in the preheated oven and let it bake for 20-25 minutes.

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14. Remove the baking dish from the oven and let it cool slightly.

    The filling will be very hot, so let the crisp cool for a few minutes before serving.

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Notes

Tools

• A peeler, if you want the apples peeled. Leaving the skins on works too — that one is up to you.
• A clear pie plate, if you want it to look like a pie. Any baking dish does the job otherwise.

Other Notes

• Dairy-free. Coconut oil is the usual stand-in for the butter. Be aware that browning is half of what the butter is doing here - both the filling and the topping start with butter cooked to golden - and coconut oil does not brown the same way, so that flavor goes with it. This recipe is made with butter, and we do not have a coconut-oil version.
• Nut-free. Sunflower seed flour is what people reach for in place of almond flour, and it is often described as measuring one for one. We do not have a version made with it, and this topping is a short list - flour, sweetener, xanthan gum, salt and browned butter - so the flour is carrying most of the texture on its own.
• For easier mixing, you can pulse the crisp-topping ingredients briefly in a food processor. Stop once small clumps form.
• The fan of green apple slices on the finished crisp in the photos is a fresh garnish, not part of the bake, and it is not in the ingredient list.
• This low-carb apple crisp goes well with vanilla ice cream. To keep the whole dessert low-carb, try our keto vanilla ice cream.

Wrap Up

Apple pie flavor without the pastry: browned butter twice over, tart wedges that keep their shape, and an almond crumb on top.

Serve it warm, on its own or with something cold against it — our keto vanilla ice cream keeps the whole plate low-carb.

For the same warm spices in a few minutes, and without the apples, try our apple pie chaffles, made in a mini waffle maker with apple pie spice, nutmeg and cloves.