#FoodieFriday Apple Mascarpone Cobbler

One day last month it occurred to me that there should be an apple and cheese cobbler. I took to the Internet like I usually do when I come up with a brilliant idea. Most of the time, my “brilliant ideas” are brilliant ideas that other people already came up. In this case? Not so! Apples and cheese pair well in so many other recipes, but I couldn’t seem to find a recipe that paired apples with a good dessert cheese in a cobbler recipe. I decided to create my own and selected the ultimate dessert cheese — mascarpone. The result? A delicious treat just perfect for the fall harvest!

Crust
½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups ground gluten free rice krispies
1 tbsp baking powder
1 pinch of sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp cloves
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp ginger

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl. Set aside. Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in milk and egg. Mix in the dry ingredients. Put half the crust on a greased 9×13 pan. (Or you could split the recipe between 2 pie pans or 2 8×8 pans.)

Apple Filling
8 small apples, peeled, cored, and sliced*
⅔ cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
Sprinkling of cloves, nutmeg, and ginger

Stir together apples, sugar, and spices. Pour over the cobbler crust.

*I used 8 small macintosh apples, which produced a ridiculous amount of apples. Feel free to scale back on the apples if you wish.

Mascarpone Filling
8oz mascarpone
1 egg
½ cup heavy cream
½ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 pinch of sea salt

Beat together mascarpone and egg. Beat in cream, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Pour over apples. Put the reserved cobbler crust over the top.

Streusel Topping (From Southern Living)
½ cup butter
⅔ cup brown sugar
⅔ cup grounded rice krispies
1 tsp cinnamon
Sprinkling of cloves, nutmeg, and ginger

Cream butter and sugar together. Beat in ground krispies and spices. Put on top of the cobbler. Bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown.

Salted Caramel Sauce (Lifted entirely from Nadia G.)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup unsalted butter
Pinch of sea salt

Using a food processor, pulverize the granulated sugar into fine powder or dust. In a pot, heat the water over medium heat. As the water begins to slowly heat, carefully pour the pulverized sugar into the center of the pot, creating a mound. Do not touch or mix the sugar into the water, let it dissolve on its own. Once the sugar-water begins to boil, keep a close eye on it: in a few minutes the water will boil away and then the sugar will begin to boil. Watch closely, the second the molten sugar begins to turn a light brown or caramel color, take it off the heat and add the whipping cream and butter. [Nadia G’s] Note: Careful, it will spatter. Whisk the mixture until smooth. Add a big pinch of fleur de sel and whisk to incorporate. [Meredith’s Note]: Melt the butter in the molten sugar first — I end up with rock sugar stuck to my whisk if I don’t!

Serve the cobbler with salted caramel sauce — and ice cream and/ or whipped cream and more caramel sauce!