Apple Recipes: Breakfast to Dessert
A collection of 17 recipes from Serious Eats helps use a surplus of fall apples, featuring dishes from apple pie muffins to a grill-baked skillet crisp.
If you have bags of apples from a seasonal orchard trip, breakfast and dessert recipes are the solution. Serious Eats offers 17 cozy recipes to help use the haul, from muffins and cakes to pies and crisps.
These recipes transform fresh apples into portable snacks, make-ahead breakfasts, and crowd-friendly desserts. The collection emphasizes cozy, autumnal flavors like cinnamon and caramel across a variety of techniques.
Breakfast and Quick Bakes
Apple pie flavors can move to the morning table. Tender, buttery apple pie muffins feature a cinnamon crumb topping, suitable for coffee or an afternoon treat. For a no-bake option, apple pie overnight oats layer creamy oats with tender apples and spices for a make-ahead meal.
A dramatic German apple pancake puffs in the oven around caramelized apples, creating an easy centerpiece breakfast. Apple pie pancakes fold tender apples and warm spices into a classic batter for a stack that tastes like dessert. For a unique take, the Gâteau Invisible, or Invisible Apple Cake, uses many thin apple slices so the batter nearly disappears, resulting in a moist, fruit-forward cake.
Pies, Tarts, and Handheld Treats
Classic apple pie appears in several formats. A Pennsylvania Dutch apple pie bakes spiced apples beneath a rich, crumbly topping. An apple slab pie offers a larger, crowd-friendly format with flaky pastry. For individual portions, spiced apple hand pies provide a portable, golden-crusted snack.
More elegant presentations include a tarte Tatin, where apples cook in buttery caramel before being covered with pastry and flipped. An apple chestnut tart combines tender apples and earthy chestnuts in a buttery crust, finished with salted caramel.
Simple Desserts and Creative Twists
Simple baked desserts highlight the fruit. Whole baked apples cook until tender and spoonable. A 10-minute microwave apple crisp for one offers a single-serving portion with a buttery oat topping. For outdoor cooking, a grill-baked skillet apple crisp caramelizes apples in a cast-iron skillet on the grill, adding a subtle smoky note.
Creative twists include an apple blueberry pie cake, a deep-dish dessert with jammy fruit beneath a cake-like topping. Sweet and spicy applesauce cooks apples with warm spices and savory heat, serving as a condiment for meats or a topping for oatmeal or ice cream. Finally, apple pie ice cream captures the classic flavors in a scoopable, creamy form.
The full set of recipes provides numerous ways to handle a seasonal apple surplus. For more detailed guidance on kitchen essentials, our guide to fixtures can help, and for perfecting your baking technique, check our stats on recipe success rates.
