When fall arrives, some might be pining for sweater weather or anticipating the first pumpkin spice latte of the season, I count the days until I can make a trip to the apple orchard. I’ve been picking apples at the same orchard — Scott’s Yankee Farmer—for as long as I can remember, and you’ll never convince me that another orchard has superior apples.

At the end of my summer breaks in college, I would stock up with a semester’s supply of Cortlands (my favorite variety) just before heading back to school in September and transport them cross-country to Chicago. More recently, on a road trip to Canada for my wedding anniversary, I brought along a cooler full of apples I’d picked the week before. Concerned about them being seized at customs, I spent a not-insignificant amount of time researching the laws about transporting fresh produce between the USA and Canada. Luckily, my fears proved unfounded. All the apples we didn’t eat on the trip made it there and back unscathed. (I know you’re relieved.)

So what do I do with all these apples? Of course, many of them are eaten straight. Others are sliced and dipped in peanut butter for a snack. Sometimes I get ambitious and make applesauce or apple butter. But without fail, I always need to turn some into my favorite fall dessert, apple crisp.

I love apple crisp so much that I’ve been known, on occasion, to request it instead of birthday cake. But when it comes to making it, until this year, I’d always stuck to the same basic recipe. The results were always tasty—it’s basically impossible to make a bad apple crisp—but I decided to branch out.

The King Arthur Flour recipe I settled on (technically a crumble, not a crisp, according to KA) called for rum or cider. But I love bourbon in desserts, so I decided to use that instead. It also called for ground ginger, which I’m not particularly fond of in sweet recipes, so I substituted allspice.

It could have been my oven, or maybe the fact that I baked my crisp/crumble in a dark metal pan, but I found that the baking time called for in the original recipe was much too long. The recipe called for baking at 350 degrees for 90 minutes, but I pulled mine out after an hour, and even then it was a bit too dark. But the result was delicious nonetheless. Unusually for apple crisps, which tend to become soggy fairly quickly, both my husband and I thought it tasted even better on the second day, after the flavors had had a chance to meld.

Bourbon-Pecan Apple Crisp

Slightly adapted from Apple Crumble in The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion

Filling

3 pounds apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into ¼-inch slices

¼ cup bourbon (or substitute rum or apple cider)

2 tablespoons melted butter

¾ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

3 tablespoons tapioca flour or all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

Topping

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup oat-fashioned rolled oats

½ cup chopped pecans

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon baking powder

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch square baking pan or a similarly sized baking dish.

Mix the apple in a large bowl with the remaining filling ingredients and stir. Place in the baking dish.

Stir together topping ingredients, except the pecans and butter. Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the mixture, blending until the butter pieces are the size of small peas and the mixture is crumbly. Stir in the pecans, then sprinkle the topping over the apples.

Bake until the apples are soft, the topping is browned, and the crisp is bubbly. Start checking for doneness around 45 minutes; it may take longer depending on your oven and baking dish.

Serve slightly warm or at room temperature, topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Emily Scace, an editor, enjoys discovering new recipes and perfecting old ones in her East Lyme kitchen. She cooks with local ingredients, including whatever is growing in her garden. She can be reached at savoringseasons@gmail.com.