Friday, June 19, 2009

Berry good!

Ain't that lil' dish 'o dessertiness purty? The better part is it's amazingly delicious and stupidly easy. Got fruit in virtually any combination? Maybe a few dry ingredients? No? Well, get your ass to the store and get some, because this will kill at you next gathering. Sometimes I'm amazed at how the simplest things make the biggest impact. Our friends who were over had their swoon on...as did I. I love hot, crumbly topped fruit desserts, especially if they are blueberry inflected. Based on what I'm seeing at the farmers markets right now, your choices are endless. A little ice cream on top, and it is all there. You can make it ahead of time and reheat at 350* when you're ready to serve. I got the recipe from Darlene over at blazinghotwok, so a big thanks to her! The recipe below is for individual desserts or in one baking pan. I think it is so cool to have this personalized little dish in front of me that I highly recommend you invest in some 8 ounce ramekins!The little berries with their sugar and cornstarch ready to be topped
*** *** *** *** ***
Berry Crumble
from blazinghotwok
makes 1 large pie-sized or 6 ramekins

For the filling:
1 ½ lbs (4 to 5 cups) berries (I used raspberries and blueberries)
¾ oz (3 tbs) cornstarch
5 ½ oz (2/3 cup) granulated sugar
2 tbs lemon juice

For the topping:
4 ½ oz (1 cup) all purpose flour
2 3/8 oz (1/3 cup) granulated sugar
2 1/8 oz (1/3 cup packed) brown sugar
pinch of salt
8 oz (1 stick) cold butter, diced
1 5/8 oz (½ cup) quick-cooking or regular rolled oats
1 5/8 oz (1/2 cup) sliced almonds

Begin by making the topping. In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt and butter until you get a coarse mixture. I like to add the oats and pulse a couple of times to break them up a little. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and add the almonds. Mix in the almonds making clumps (although it will still be pretty loose).

In another large bowl, combine the granulated sugar and cornstarch and mix until all the cornstarch is mixed in with the sugar. Add the fruit and lemon juice and carefully mix, trying not to mash the fruit. Transfer the fruit into a large baking dish (or ramekins) and press the topping on. I like to make sure the fruit is completely covered. Bake in a 350F oven (on a sheet pan to catch the juices) until bubbly and the topping is golden.

Serve warm, with a scoop of ice cream.

2 comments:

dds said...

After having had your crumble and seeing the recipe here, I rushed out to make it for J&J apres Vino last Friday. As you know, I don't bake, and this looked easy enough even for me....

Thanks to your advice, I used ALL of what seemed to be lots of leftover crumble topping. (I used 2 larger, shallow ovals rather than round ramekins for more topping surface space.) Thanks to New Seasons being out of strawberries, I added a carton of the most delicious raspberries to my blueberries. It was insanely easy (15 minutes to make, 30 to bake) and K, J & J raved. Jill said she'd pay $10 for it in a restaurant, K said maybe my best ever dessert effort, John was too busy eating to say much.

Great fruit makes a difference (off to buy more raspberries from NS) but that topping would be good on grass clippings.

test it comm said...

Those are just packed with berries. The finished product looks great with the ice cream on top.