Sautéed Apple Slices with Whipped Cream

This week’s recipe is extremely simple and quick dessert, perfect for fall time. I have been suffering from a weird flu virus, which has left terrible pain in my cervical spine. Therefore I didn’t manage to develop anything fancy, but I’m sure this dessert will satisfy your need for a quick and delicious fall time dessert. It’s a great treat for coffee time, too.

 

 

 

Sautéed Apple Slices with Whipped Cream 2/3 cup = 160 ml organic heavy cream 8.5 oz = 240 g peeled and sliced apples 2 tablespoons (or to taste) erythritol crystals 2 teaspoons ground organic cinnamon 4 tablespoons = 2 oz = 60 g organic butter (salted for fuller flavor)   Directions In a medium bowl, beat the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Refrigerate. In a large bowl, combine the apple slices, erythritol and cinnamon and mix gently but well. Put the butter into a heavy skillet and start heating over a medium-low heat. Add the apple slices to the skillet when the butter is melted. Cover and sauté over a low heat about 5–10 minutes, or when the apples are a bit soft but not completely soft. Mix gently once in a while. Place the hot apple slices into dessert bowls and serve immediately with the whipped cream.

 

 

Nutrition information	Protein	Fat	Net carbs	kcal
In total:	4.4 g	105 g	25 g	1066 kcal
Per portion if 4 portions in total:	1.1 g	26.3 g	6.2 g	266 kcal

 

 

 

Tips for making this dessert

Make sure to use bitter or sour apples. First of all, they ensure better taste. Secondly, they are lower in carbs. The bitter, the better.

The needed amount of sweetener depends naturally on the bitterness of the apples. Adjust the amount of sweetener to your taste, and take into account how bitter the apples are.

Different apple varieties take different times to cook and soften. Cooking time also depends on how thick or thin the slices are. Check once in a while how do the apples look and when they are the perfect consistency in your opinion. If you want them softer, sauté them longer, if you like them crispier, sauté them shorter time. Mix the apples gently every now and then when sautéing.

This dessert tastes best when served hot. Don’t let the dessert wait for the dinner guests, let the dinner guests wait for the dessert. (In any case they don’t have to wait long! This is so quickly made). You can prepare the whipped cream and apples beforehand, before preparing and eating the dinner. Just sprinkle the apple slices with lemon juice, if you have some easily available, and store the slices in an airtight container so that they don’t get brown color. Actually, the brown color really doesn’t matter here, because the apple slices get brown after sautéing anyway, and also the cinnamon makes them brown.

 

 

 

 

My experiments with this dessert

Fall smells like apples. Apples are everywhere. Even if you don’t have your own apple trees, you are sure to get loads of apples otherwise. From friends and acquaintances, grocery stores, markets…

My parents visited us last weekend and brought bucketfuls of apples from their own apple trees. I wanted to use some for dessert. As fruits, apples are not really the lowest in carbs, although I could think of worse stuff. That’s why I concentrate more on cream and butter here to get the carb count tolerable.

I had sometimes made sautéed apples and served them with ice cream. That seems to be a quite popular dessert. Now I wanted something a bit different, but also a combination of hot and cold. Something really simple, quick and easy.

Whipped cream is simple and easy to make, and goes well with almost anything. Since apples call for some spice, I chose cinnamon. So very basic stuff. But so delicious!

In my first experiment I added 1 tablespoon cinnamon and 1 tablespoon erythritol to the whipped cream and just sautéed the apples in butter and 1 tablespoon erythritol. The cinnamon tasted unpleasantly bitter and grainy in whipped cream, so I decided to stick to the traditional way, and add the cinnamon to the apples before sautéing.

In my next experiment I tossed 1 tablespoon cinnamon, apple slices and 1 tablespoon erythritol, and sautéed them in melted butter. I seasoned the whipped cream with just 1 tablespoon erythritol. After sautéing the cinnamon flavor became much gentler. The dessert tasted good, but I wanted it to taste even better. Actually, to my taste there was a little bit too much cinnamon, so I decided to reduce the amount to 2 teaspoons.

In my next experiments I used vanilla stevia or toffee stevia instead of erythritol. I added stevia to the whipped cream, and to the melted butter rather than to the apple slices so that the stevia will get really well mixed. Then I wanted to make the flavor scheme clearer, and added stevia only to the melted butter before adding the apple slices and served the whipped cream as such.

However, I wasn’t satisfied with my stevia experiments. Toffee stevia gave some interesting aftertaste. Vanilla stevia was okay, but somehow it wasn’t perfect. I switched back to erythritol. Well, a matter of taste, I expect.

 

 

 

 

Tips for variation

There are numerous ways to vary this dessert. Here are few ideas:

• For adults, add some calvados or brandy before sautéing the apple slices, and after sautéing some more (not too much, though! A couple of tablespoons are enough)
• For kids, add some lemon or lime juice before sautéing
• Add a little bit of freshly ground organic cardamom in addition to cinnamon, or add the cardamom to the whipped cream
• Replace the cinnamon with apple pie spice
• Add 1/3 cup (80 ml) chopped organic walnuts and sauté them with the apple slices
• Try sour cream or full-fat plain yogurt instead of whipped cream. Instead of whipped cream you can also try low-carb vanilla ice cream, or your favorite ice cream flavor.