Recipe Courtesy of:
Richard Smith, Chef-de-Cuisine
Eleven at Ginn Reunion Resort

Roasted Apple Crisp©
Apples—whether or not they are in pie—are as American as you can get.

We have an orchard here on the Resort property that we are restoring that is more than a hundred years old. In fact some of the local historians say it may well have been around when Stonewall Jackson himself was hiking through these mountains near his home at Jackson’s Mill only 15 miles north of here.

That orchard was my inspiration and it convinced me that our signature dessert should feature apples. The apples in this crisp are baked the way my grandmother did hers—there’s no sugar added; she caramelized them in their own natural fruit sugars. I developed the recipe after I visited the Bruderhof—it uses their granola. Then I made some adaptations of my own—the lavender whipped cream.

Hope you enjoy this New Appalachian favorite.

Granola
One of our staff grew up in a Bruderhof—a German Utopian Community—in upstate New York. When we visited his family, we were very impressed with the wonderful food. It’s not surprising that almost everything they eat is from their land where it is organic and “slow grown” (no hormones or genetic engineering) to conserve both the earth and their health.

At the Bruderhof all but two meals a week are eaten communally and one breakfast we had Mother Rachel’s granola. It was in its way as down home as our Appalachian fare, and so I decided we should incorporate it into our menu here at the Resort.

Light, fluffy and delicious. Lemon soufflé pancakes drizzled with a tangy sauce made from Southern U.S. blueberries are the perfect start to a relaxing weekend breakfast or brunch.