Crock Pot Apple Crisp is a must-make dessert for autumn. The delicious smells of apples and cinnamon will fill your home with the most amazing aromas and the taste will make your tastebuds smile! This is a family favorite at our house and is going onto my big list of apple recipes and activities.
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Ingredients
You know I am a fan of easy recipes and this definitely falls into that category. There are only five ingredients in this slow cooker apple crisp. It is a great way to use up apples so they don’t go bad.
- Apples: The tartness of granny smith apples adds a nice balance to the other sweet ingredients so I think they’re the best apples for this recipe. Golden delicious, pink lady, and honey crisp apples work well too though.
- Brown Sugar: This adds an extra touch of added sweetness plus a good color
- Cinnamon: One teaspoon ground cinnamon brings out all the other flavors in the dish and makes the house smell amazing at the same time
- Yellow Cake Mix: The secret ingredient! Using cake mix lets you skip buying and measuring other ingredients
- Butter: This provides the moisture plus amazing flavor
Substitutions and Additions
- Apple Pie Filling: If you want to make this recipe even easier, use apple pie filling in place of the apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon. You’ll still need the cake mix and butter to create the crumble.
- Other Fruits: You don’t have to limit yourself to apples! Feel free to substitute peaches or cherry pie filling instead for completely different, but equally tasty, variations.
- Coconut Oil: If you don’t have butter, or prefer not to use it, you can use coconut oil instead.
- Nutmeg: For a little added flavor, add some nutmeg. It pairs great with cinnamon.
- Oats: You can use oats instead of the cake mix if you want to add some fiber. To get the right texture, add 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour (or almond flour if you want to avoid gluten).
How to Make Crock Pot Apple Crisp
This is a simple recipe and the hardest part is peeling and slicing up the apples. I put my kids to work helping me on this part of the recipe! It goes so much faster if we work together.
Step 1: Prepare the Apples
The biggest time-suck for this recipe is preparing the apples. You need 6 cups of granny smith apples peeled, cored and sliced.
How many apples will it take? Well that all depends on the size of each apple, how deeply you peel them, etc.
Just keep peeling, coring and slicing until you reach six cups! Some people like to drizzle the apples with lemon juice to retain some of their color, but since we’re cooking the apples I don’t think it’s necessary. It will add a nice flavor balance though if you opted against granny smith apples.
Step 2: Fill Slow Cooker
Spray the inside of your slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray.
Add all the sliced apples to the slow cooker. My crock pot is a 6-quart slow cooker, but any average size (typically between 5 and 8 quarts) should work.
Sprinkle the cinnamon over the apples. Then add the brown sugar to the apples. Next sprinkle the yellow cake mix over the top of the apples.
Step 3: Add butter
This step is important and brings the whole recipe together! You need to cut one stick of real butter into cubes and sprinkle those cubes of butter over the top of the mixture in the slow cooker.
Step 4: Cook
Put the lid on your slow cooker and turn it on high for about 3 hours.
Once the apples are cooked this delightful dessert will be done! Spoon generous portions onto small plates or into bowls to serve.
Did I mention this is even more amazing served with vanilla ice cream? YUM!
My kids like it with some warm caramel sauce drizzled over the top. For added crunch, add a handful of chopped walnuts.
More Apple Ideas for Fall
Apples are a staple at our house year-round, but we especially love the scent of apples in the fall. It reminds me of apple-picking as a child and is something we still try to do occasionally.
Back to school time and apples also go hand in hand. There are so many cute apple-themed crafts to make and apple-flavored foods to eat this time of year.
If you love autumn as much as I do you will want to try out some of these apple activities to really get you in the fall groove.
- Make your own potpourri with sliced apples and spices. Let it simmer on the stove for a wonderful smell throughout your house.
- A fun family activity for a fall evening would be to set up a big bucket of water and have everyone bob for apples. This will get a lot of laughs from your children.
- Sit down and spend some quality time coloring with your kids. Just print off these free printable apple coloring pages and get started creating!
- Go to the grocery store and try a few new varieties of apples that your family hasn’t eaten before! You could even make this into a contest to see which variety gets the most votes for a new family favorite.
Fall won’t be the same if you don’t try making an easier version of apple crisp recipe by making it in the crock pot! I love apple crisp and my house smelled amazing for hours after I made this!
You can print off the complete ingredients and instructions via the recipe card below.
📋 Recipe
Crock Pot Apple Crisp
Equipment
- Slow cooker
Ingredients
- 6 cups granny smith apples peeled and sliced
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup brown sugar packed
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 1 stick butter cut into cubes
Instructions
- Spray inside of slow cooker with cooking spray. Then, add apples.
- Sprinkle cinnamon over apples. Add brown sugar. Pour cake mix over the top.
- Sprinkle butter cubes over the cake mix.
- Cover and cook on high for 3 hours.
Video
Nutrition
If you love apple recipes be sure to check out these other great recipes with apple:
If I double the recipe do I need to double the cooking time?
I looked it up and found various answers. A few answers said, you can double slow cooker recipes as long as they will fit in your slow cooker without filling it more than 3/4 full. Some others recommended just making more than one batch, rather than doubling it. It seems like you don’t need to double the cooking time, some said it should cook in the same time, or maybe an hour more.
Saw this recipe yesterday & decided to make it today since I had a few apples I needed to do something with. I used to make a recipe years ago, almost just like this, in a 9″×13″ pan, baked in the oven about an hour. I loved that cake. When I saw this recipe for slow cooker & real apples, instead of canned pie filling, I had to try it. Folks, it turned out fantastic. I was absolutely delighted with it! I followed the instructions to the letter. After 3 hours it was done. I turned the slow cooker off, left the lid on for 15 minutes. The top of the cake browned up. Then, I took the lid off. After a few minutes the top of the cake firmed up & became more crispy-like. Few minutes later my husband & I dug in. Absolutely delicious!! We love it. Try this recipe. Don’t deviate from instructions. You’ll love it too. This recipe is a definite keeper!
I’m so glad you and your husband liked it! Thanks for letting all of my readers know how it turned out for you. I appreciate your comments.
Could I use a sugar free yellow cake mix? Also could I omit the brown sugar and put in a small amount of honey instead?
I haven’t tried it that way, but it sounds like it would be okay.
What size slow cooker do you use? Mine is 3.5 liters, so about 3.7 quarts. I’m worried it’s not big enough for most “cake” recipes.
The average slow cooker size is between 5 and 6 quarts, so the recipe is written for that size. This article from Taste of Home explains how to adjust the recipe to the size of your slow cooker: https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-convert-recipes-to-the-size-of-your-slow-cooker/.
Could you add cranberries to this?
Yes, that would be a great idea!
Do you make the cake batter and pour it or just pour the dry powder?
Just pour it on dry.
No mixing or stirring together?
There’s no need to, though you can stir the cinnamon and brown sugar in if you want even coating on the apples. Definitely don’t stir the cake mix in though.
Thanks!