Maple syrup-candied crabapples with oat-pecan crumble cakes

Last Updated on September 22, 2023 by Aaron von Frank

If you don’t think crabapples can be gourmet food, these maple syrup-candied crabapples might just change your mind. Add them on top of our oat-pecan crumble cake (which is gluten-free), and you’ll be swooning for this seasonal delicacy! 

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The gourmet crabapple

This is one of the best dessert recipes we’ve ever created, so we’re happy it was made with the lowly crabapple. We say “lowly” because most people hold crabapples in such low culinary regard that the fruits are rarely used in the kitchen, instead left to rot in piles under their trees. 

We hope more people will start appreciating crabapples as food because they have incredible culinary potential. The intense sour and bitter flavors of the raw fruit are mellowed by cooking, becoming downright magical. Cooked crabapples taste like a flavorful apples crossed with cranberry crossed with almond.

The almond flavor comes from the seeds — and we recommend using the whole crabapple including the seeds, once you’ve removed the stems and calyxes (the brown bottom piece). 

Crabapples are great in savory dishes like our one-pot turkey with chestnuts and crabapples. But they may be even better in desserts since their intense flavor mixes beautifully with added sweeteners like brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, etc. 

Pectin: Crabapple’s other secret culinary weapon

Crabapples also have another huge benefit in the kitchen: they’re loaded with pectin. In case you’ve never heard of it before, pectin is the starch used to thicken jellies, jams, etc.

Usually, you have to buy commercial pectin for fruit recipes that need to set/thicken. However, crabapples bring their own pectin to the party, so you don’t have to add any for recipes you want to form into thick sauces, jellies, and candies. 

If you have access to crabapples or a crabapple tree, we hope the above information has aroused both your interest and your appetite. Now it’s time for us to give you another gift: our recipe to make oat-pecan crumble cakes with maple syrup-candied crabapples.

Recipe tips and notes:

Here are tips and process photos to help you get this recipe just right: 

1. Crabapple types

There’s a lot of variability between types and species of crabapples. 

We use large red-skinned crabapples that are crisp and juicy when raw, albeit still intensely flavored. Ideally, you have access to a similar type of crabapple. 

If you’re using small or mealy crabapples, your results might be different from ours and you’ll also want to modify your cooking times for the maple syrup-candied crabapples. For instance, small crabapples wouldn’t need to cook nearly as long. Nor would mealy crabapples since they don’t contain much juice. 

2. Using ring molds (or alternatives)

To get the perfect nest-like forms on our oat-pecan crumble cakes, we used 3″ diameter x 3″ deep stainless steel ring molds (aka forming rings) placed on a cookie sheet. (We like Küchenprofi’s ring molds, which also come with tamper/pushers.) Ring molds are very versatile tools in the kitchen that you can use not only for baking, but for cutting dough or making photo-worthy platings. 

Once the crumble cakes cool down, they slide right out of the ring molds.

If you don’t have ring molds, you could just use buttered oven-safe ceramic ramekins. The crumble cakes should remove easily from the dishes once they’ve cooled a bit, but if they don’t, just use the ramekins as your serving dishes. 

Another alternative: use muffin tins. Just try to get as close as you can to the 3″ diameter range. 

3. Parchment paper base wraps (or aluminum foil)

If you’re baking with ring molds, you’ll need to wrap the bases of your molds so liquified butter doesn’t exit the base and make a mess on your cookie sheet.

The easy option here is aluminum foil. However, we wrap our ring molds with parchment because it’s more ecologically sensible – we can compost the paper afterwards. 

4. Making oat-pecan crumble cakes

You’ll start by making your oat-pecan crumble cakes since they’ll take about 40 minutes to bake. Plus, you want them to cool down for about 20 minutes or so before you plate them and add the candied crabapples. 

To make three 3″ diameter by ~2″ thick (they rise a bit once baked) crumble cakes, you’ll need the following ingredients:

• 1 cup organic oat flour; measured weight 104 grams – we used Arrowhead Mills organic oat flour (alt: put whole oats in food processor or blender until you achieve a flour-like consistency) 
• 1 cup pecan flour; measured weight 76 grams 
• 6 tablespoons unsalted organic grass-fed butter, room temperature 
• 1/2 cup (72 grams) organic dark brown sugar or turbinado sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt (we use fine pink Himalayan)

Put these ingredients in a food processor or Ninja and blend until all ingredients are combined and you have a thick dough-like consistency. 

Evenly distribute dough between three ring molds (or alternative baking dishes), then press down firmly and evenly with a spatula or the pusher/releaser that comes with some ring mold sets. You want the raw dough cakes to be about 1″ thick, but also leave at least 1” room from the top of the raw dough to the top of your mold/baking dish since the crumble cake will rise as it bakes. 

You’ll bake your crumble cakes for about 40 minutes in a pre-heated 350°F (176°C) oven. When done, the sides of the cakes should be risen with a sunken center. The edges should also be lightly browned. 

Remove from oven and let cakes cool for at least 20 minutes before removing and plating.

5. Making maple syrup-candied crabapples

While your crumble cakes are baking, start making your candied crabapples.

First, use a small knife/paring knife to remove the crabapples’ stems and calyxes. Cut in a circular motion around the stem to remove them. The calyxes can simply be lopped off with a straight cut. 

You’ll need a small saucepan plus the following ingredients to make three generous servings of maple syrup-candied crabapples:

• 10 ounces large crabapples (about 2 cups measured whole)
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• Pinch of nutmeg (or microplane fresh)
• Pinch of salt

Put all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over medium heat. Ideally, you’ll have a pan size allowing the crabapples to fit snuggly together on one level.

You’ll start with the lid on for the first 10-15 minutes. During this time window, you’re aiming to cook the crabapples through and release their liquid, but not evaporate the water. Stir regularly and/or give the pan a shake to roll the crabapples around to different sides.

After 15 minutes, remove the lid on the crabapples and cook for another ~15 minutes. Here, you’re trying to get a majority of the water out, candying the crabapples and forming a thick, flavorful sauce that will jell when cooled.

Since your pan size AND crabapple size will affect cook times, remove the pan from heat and consider your candied crabapples done if yours cook down faster than ours. Once removed from heat, cover and set aside until you’re ready to add them atop the crumble cakes. 

If they cool and jell to the point that you can’t remove them before plating, return them to a low heat and even add a bit of water back in if necessary.     

6. Plate and serve

Oat-pecan crumble cakes with maple syrup-candied crabapples are best served slightly warm. Here’s how we plated ours:

We dusted one half of the plate with fermented rose petal dust from a previous recipe. 

Then we placed the crumble cakes. 

Now it’s time to add the candied crabapples (they have to be warm or they’re too sticky to work with!). First one crabapple goes in the middle, then you fill in around the sides before adding a final crabapple on top. 

Then use a spoon to drizzle the whole thing with a bit of the thick, delicious crabapple maple syrup from the bottom of the saucepan. Serve!

At each bite, try to get a bit of the cake with a bit of the crabapple/sauce because they pair so wonderfully together. After you’re done, you’ll  never look at a crabapple the same way again! 

Recipe: Maple syrup-candied crabapple crumble cakes

KIGI,

Other crabapple recipes you’ll love: 

• Crabapple maple syrup pie
• Crabapple hand pies
• Chestnut crabapple mash
• One-pot turkey with chestnuts and crabapples
• Wild-fermented cider made with crabapples and American beautyberries