BSI: Ginger (Crustless Apple Pie w/ Ginger Topping)

I've been waiting for the perfect moment to jump into the BSI contest and this week's ingredient selection was perfect: ginger! I had made those ginger ribs about two weeks ago, and know (from the great Alton Brown) that ginger doesn't last indefinitely in the fridge. I still had some on hand I wanted to use up, so this was calling to me!

As with the ribs, I usually have only cooked with ginger in savory dishes. The ribs turned out great, I've added it to a lot of asian-inspired meals and stir-fry dishes. As I was looking around for inspiration, I realized that it can be found in many sweet things and I knew I wanted to go sweet, versus savory. At first, I was thinking of making a home-made ginger ale, or maybe a ginger infused tea, but I thought in the end it would be kind of a blah entry into a contest, even if the feat of making it from scratch was cool on my end. So, I settled on a crustless pie.

The past few times I've made pies, I've made them crustless. It started with some apples I wanted to use up, so I sliced them and threw them in a baking dish to cook alongside dinner with some cinammon and sugar. They were delicious baked apples, but fell short of a dessert. The next time, I made a simple crumble and baked it on top - perfect! Now, every once in awhile if I have extra apples, or even peaches, I do this crustless crumble pie. So - why not do that, but throw ginger in with the crumble? I thought it'd bake up really nicely and compliment some apples I had in the bottom bin, needing to be used up. Not to mention, smell really delicious in the oven!! Yummy, yummy!


For the filling, I cut up 5 apples, tossed them in the usual apple-pie mixture of lemon juice and sugar, and put them in a sprayed pie plate. Then, for the crumble topping I used about 1/3 cup of Cornflake crumbs (they're whey-free and can be used in sweet and savory dishes), 1/4 cup brown sugar, a couple spoonfuls of flour to hold it together, about 2 tablespoons of chopped, fresh ginger and about 2 tablespoons of melted Smart Balance 50/50. I tossed the crumble ingredients together in a small bowl, then sprinkled them across the apples in the pie dish. I baked at 400° for a half an hour, until the apples were tender and the top was crunchy. If you think apple pie smells good, just coming out of the oven - you should smell it with the added scent of ginger!