Apple Pie Deep Dish Skillet Cookie

October and the world is putting on its autumn dress, and I am cooking in a kitchen that has started to feel like my kitchen again, not the foreign country it was in April or the haunted room it was in May but my kitchen, with my stove and my skillet and my spices in their right order on the shelf, except for the paprika which Mable has moved again and which I have moved back again in the ongoing territorial dispute that is the only conflict I have energy for.

The fall festival at church was this weekend, and I worked the food booth, the way I have worked the food booth every year since CJ was old enough to dress as Moses. Hotdogs, popcorn, caramel apples. Children in Bible costumes. The noise of sixty kids having the kind of fun that is entirely unaware of adult grief, which is as it should be, because children should be unaware of adult grief, and the food booth is where I stand and serve and watch the unaware joy and borrow a little of it for myself, which is not stealing, it is participating, and participating is something the new Loretta is learning to do again, one hotdog at a time.

Made the caramel apples from scratch again — butter, brown sugar, sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup, cooked to soft ball stage. A boy of about twelve came to the booth and took a caramel apple and took a bite and his eyes went wide and he said ma'am, this is the best thing I have ever eaten. And I looked at him — twelve years old, dark skin, big eyes, his whole life ahead of him — and I thought of Marcus at twelve, at the fall festival, eating a caramel apple with the same wide eyes, and the thought was a blade but I smiled at the boy and said you are welcome, sugar, and he ran off with the apple and the running was the sound of childhood, which is the most beautiful and the most terrifying sound in the world because childhood runs and you cannot catch it and you cannot keep it and one day it runs somewhere you cannot follow.

CJ confirmed he is bringing Shanice for Thanksgiving. I am already planning the menu, which is the same menu it always is, but I am planning it with the particular attention that comes from knowing a new person will be at the table, a person who will taste my food for the first time and form an opinion about the woman who made it, and the opinion matters because CJ's opinion of this woman matters and her opinion of his mother's fried chicken will tell me everything I need to know about whether she is the one. You can tell a lot about a person by how they eat fried chicken. If they eat it with their hands and close their eyes on the first bite, they are good people. If they use a fork, they have potential but need guidance. If they do not eat fried chicken at all, they are not for my son.

I am smiling as I write that. It has been seven months since I could smile about food. The smiling feels new and old at the same time, like putting on a coat you have not worn since last winter and finding it still fits. It still fits. The smile still fits. And the wearing of it is its own small miracle.

After the festival, after the caramel apples were gone and the booth was packed up and the children had run off into the kind of evening that smells like wood smoke and possibility, I came home and wanted to make something warm and unhurried, something that used apples and brown sugar and butter the way the caramel apples did but let me sit with it longer, let me tend to it in my own kitchen that is my kitchen again. This apple pie deep dish skillet cookie is what I made — all that same autumn sweetness baked slow in my skillet, the kind of dessert you eat with a spoon and a prayer of thanks that the smile still fits.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 55 minutes | Servings: 8

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced (about 1 and 1/2 cups)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (for tossing with apples)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
Vanilla ice cream, for serving

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 10-inch cast iron skillet with butter or cooking spray.
Prepare the apples. Toss the diced apples with lemon juice and 2 tablespoons flour. Set aside.
Make the cookie dough. In a large bowl, stir together the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smooth. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
Add dry ingredients. Add 1 and 3/4 cups flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir until just combined — do not overmix.
Fold in the fillings. Gently fold the prepared apples and white chocolate chips into the dough.
Bake. Press the dough evenly into the prepared skillet. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and set but the center is still slightly soft.
Cool and serve. Let the skillet cookie cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm, scooped into bowls with a generous spoonful of vanilla ice cream on top.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple Pie Deep Dish Skillet Cookie — The Sweet That Brought Me Back to Myself