Bacon Apple Crisp

To skip straight to the recipe, click here.

I have a confession. I hate ice cream. Have I said that before? You probably didn't believe me so I'll say it again. Every once in a while a little bit of coconut milk ice cream is good for making a float but just plain ice cream by itself? Bleh. Cold. Boring. Yuck. However, if I did like ice cream I might put a little scoop on top of these guys because there's lot of good juice at the bottom that's just too sweet to slurp up on its own.

I actually made this recipe for bacon apple crisp almost five years ago but since I had a lot of pink lady apples on hand, I decided I'd take some time to improve both the recipe and the photos.

My photography could still use improvement but five years ago, it was terrible. Combine the poor photography with ugly, non-photogenic food and it makes for a pretty embarrassing photo.

You might be wondering why the photo matters at all. Aside from the fact that I enjoy making my website look nice, Pinterest is one of my biggest traffic drivers. As you likely know, Pinterest is a visual platform so when I share low quality photos there, they get almost zero engagement and nobody tries the recipe - and this is a really good one!

It's been a while since I've made bacon apple crisp and I forgot how much I liked it. The apple filling is seasoned with the same spices as my fried apples and the crumble topping is the perfect texture. Since there's bacon in the crumble, it adds a savory, salty flavor to what could easily be an overly-sweet dessert. I also love how crispy the bacon gets. Since it's already cooked then gets baked on the dessert, it really crisps up!

The recipe used to have pumpkin seeds in the topping but I decided they weren't necessary and figured everyone would appreciate a shorter shopping list. They also weren't doing any favors for this ugly dessert's aesthetics. I replaced them with more pecans but you could add them back in if you like (see recipe notes).

You can also make this to share with a crowd. A while back when we were meeting up with some friends, I doubled the recipe and baked it in a ceramic casserole dish instead of ramekins. Everyone loved it! I just did the same oven temperature and baked it until the apples were soft.

Print

Recipe

Bacon Apple Crisp

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No reviews

• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Cook Time: 45 mins
• Total Time: 1 hour
• Yield: 6 servings 1x
• Method: baking

Print

Pin

---

Description

Spiced apples with a crunchy topping, including extra crispy bacon, served in their own individual ramekins. Gluten free, dairy free, and paleo friendly.

---

Ingredients

• ¼ C honey
• ½ tsp plus ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, divided
• ⅛ tsp allspice
• ⅛ tsp ground cloves
• 3-4 apples, cored and diced small
• ⅓ C almond flour (or other nut/seed flour)
• 2 Tbsp coconut sugar
• 3 Tbsp cooled bacon fat (or other solid fat)
• 3 strips of bacon, cooked and diced
• ⅓ C pecan pieces

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

---

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together honey, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. You can warm the honey a little if it's too thick to work with.
3. Dice up apples and add toss them in the bowl with the honey mixture.
4. Evenly divide the apple pieces between six 4-oz ramekins. Make sure to place these on top of a baking sheet or you will have quite a mess to clean up in your oven!
5. Set the ramekins aside and start on your crumble topping. Using a fork, mix together the almond flour, coconut sugar, and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon. Add the bacon fat and use the fork to incorporate it all together (it will be clumpy). Now stir in the bacon and pecan pieces.
6. Top each ramekin with the crumble mixture. Bake until the apples are soft and can easily be pierced with a fork. It should take about 30-35 minutes.

---

Notes

You’re not going to get enough fat from the 3 strips of bacon to make this recipe so if you don’t already have bacon fat saved up in the fridge, I think regular pork lard, dairy free butter, or regular butter would be good substitutes. If you cook an entire package of bacon, you should get plenty of leftover fat.

This recipe has been revised since I first published it in 2014. Originally, the topping included 2 tablespoon pumpkin seeds and only 3 tablespoon pecan pieces. The recipe also calls for six 4-oz ramekins but this most recent time, I was able to use four larger ramekins and no juices bubbled over the edges. Either size is fine though!