Apple Mess

I created something delicious last night and wanted to share. I call it “Apple Mess.” It’s not exact, but it’s delicious!

First, I preheated the oven to approximately 350°F (177-ish C).

Second, I adapted my chocolate chip cookie recipe for kind of a sugar cookie effect.

With a wooden spoon, cream together 1 stick of butter, 1/3 cup of white sugar and 1/3 cup of brown sugar (packed if it’s American, loose if it’s European). Beat in 1 egg, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, 1/8 teaspoon of salt and 3/8 teaspoon of baking powder.

For chocolate chip cookies, I would here add 1 cup of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips BUT I was not making chocolate chip cookies, so instead I shook in some of a spice blend that contains cinnamon, clove, ginger and allspice. I didn’t measure, just went with it until it tasted right. Then, to the butter mixture, I added 1 1/3 cups of flour. This made it slightly thicker than my usual cookie dough (which is 1 1/4 cups of flour) which is totally what I was going for.

Next I greased a small ceramic casserole dish with butter. Its dimensions were approximately 9 x 5 x 1.5, but I expect that the recipe could be adapted for something bigger. I pressed between 1/2 and 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of the dish and baked it for 10 to 15 minutes, until the edges were golden but the middle was still mushy.

While this was baking, I shook some more spice blend and some straight up cinnamon into about 1 cup of chucky applesauce. It could have used more, but I only had the one jar. I spread this over the bottom later of dough, and then I dotted the applesauce with butter. I pinched the remaining cookie dough, small portions at time, into flat pieces which I set on top of the applesauce. When more or less all of the applesauce was covered, I popped the casserole dish back into the over for another 10 to fifteen minutes, until the edges of the top layer of dough were golden and the middle looked more dry than mushy. I cooled it for about five minutes before serving.

I called it Apple Mess because it isn’t really pie, and because it doesn’t hold together at all when it’s being served, which has to be done with a spoon. It would be really good with vanilla ice cream, I imagine. It’s super easy. If you try it, let me know how it goes.