Winter’s coming – or maybe for you, it’s already here.

Like I’ve mentioned before, there’s nothing much more comforting on a dark, cold morning than the smell of apples and cinnamon cooking fragrantly on the stove.

The easy-to-make fully flavorful warm apple cranberry fruit topping recipe you see here that goes great over pancakes, French toast, waffles, hot or cold cereal, with yogurt and jam, and much more is what I call a base or building block recipe. As a base recipe, you can use the prep and cooking techniques shown here and then use your choice of ingredients to make the topping just the way you want to suit your taste. Next couple posts will show examples that do exactly that.

Here’s what you need to make this recipe:

Here’s how I used it this morning to power a 25+ mile bike ride with good Hickory, NC, buds. I scooped a big spoon of the topping in a bowl and topped it off with yogurt, fig jam, some ground seeds (flaxseed and chia seeds), kefir and dried fruit – along with a pancake topped with nut butter, jam, yogurt and more dried fruit. That and a coffee/hot chocolate mix. Killer!

Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete warm apple cranberry fruit topping picture book recipe.

Next post: a couple easy variations on this apple cranberry fruit topping theme. All easy, all flavorful!