Lightened-Up Apple Crisp

With apple season in full swing recently, many of us look for ways to incorporate them into our cooking and baking. But, I, also, know that so many of us are trying to keep to a healthier lifestyle these days. Personally, I have been working lately to cut back on the amount of sugar in my daily diet. Here, I've taken apple crisp - a fall dessert that we all know and adore - and I've made it a bit more healthy. With just a couple of slight changes to my traditional recipe, I've managed to make apple crisp something that I don't feel as guilty about indulging in this time of year.

The changes aren't major ones. The end result is still something that we're all familiar with ... I promise. Basically, I've lessened the amount of sugar to both the filling and topping (about a third less compared to my traditional recipe), swapped in some orange juice and coconut oil for the butter component of the crumbly topping and amped up the warm, autumnal spices for this version.

My husband and I actually found that we preferred this rendition since so many apple crisps can be cloyingly sweet. All of the satisfaction was still there, but with a little less guilt.

Of course, serving it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream is totally up to you. (Swoon!) But, if you'd like to stay on course with the healthy vibe we've got going here, you could opt for a low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt or a small dollop of low-fat Greek yogurt. (FYI:  I like mine with just a tiny splash of heavy cream.)

NOTE: I prefer a combination of both sweet and tart apples for apple crisp.