Caramel Apple Crisp

Well.....it has been 13 months since I posted anything!  That is crazy.  But I have been busy...a brief summary of changes which have made me not want to post/not able to post would be
A: I'm gluten free now (for over a year, but it's taken me awhile to get my mojo back)
B: My son just had major surgery and I've spent the last several months cooking as a fundraiser for his medical expenses, making me not able to try anything new.

Excuses, excuses, I know ;)  I'm not sure if today's post signifies that I'm back in the saddle or not, but we'll see...This recipe came from Simple & Delicious Aug/Sept 2015.  I wanted to make it for home fellowship next week, but decided to make it today instead, because a friend sent me a recipe for a Candy Corn Bundt Cake that I'm going to make for next week.  Also the kids went apple picking with my mother-in-law last week while we were in Boston for the surgery, so we had a bunch of apples just sitting around begging to be put in something.  So here is the recipe in it's original form, and I'll let you know my modifications for gluten at the end...

Caramel Apple Crisp
3 cups old-fashioned oats
2 cups flour
1 ½ cups brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup cold butter, cubed
8 cups thinly sliced peeled apples
1 pkg (14 oz) caramels, divided
1 cup apple cider, divided

Preheat oven to 350.  In a large bowl mix flour, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon; cut in butter until crumbly.  Press half the mixture into greased 9x13 baking dish. 

Layer half of each of the following: apples, caramels, and remaining oat mixture.  Repeat layers.  Drizzle 1/2 cup cider over top.

Bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes.  Drizzle with remaining cider; bake 15-20 minutes longer or until apples are tender.

To make this gluten free, I used gluten free oats and substituted the flour with a gluten free blend.  Pretty easy, and in a recipe like this, you can't really tell.

Okay so I had visions of the caramels kind of melting down through the apples, but that's not what really happened.  They stayed right where I dropped them, and you can kind of see that in the picture:

Because of that, I found myself avoiding the clumps of caramel.  The kids, however, lapped it up.  I think if I made this again, I would use a bottled caramel to drizzle over the apples, instead of chunks like this. Also not to be too much "first world problems" but it did take some time to unwrap all those caramels!  That could be something the kids could help with to cut down on time, but mine were all busy mining for gold or whatever it is they do on Minecraft.

Overall, a good recipe for a fall day :) let me know what you think if you try it.