This summer the fruit has been luscious and plentiful. And I must admit, I have been in heaven! Cherries everyday for a month straight. Blueberries in muffins and smoothies, atop oatmeal and cereal and by the handfuls. Raspberries, blackberries and peaches so juicy and perfect. And apricots that taste like apricots. It has been pure bliss!
I haven't had too much of a chance to make and bake with all the fruit (it gets eaten too fast!), but have managed to squirrel away a bit in the freezer. This week as I stared at a basketful of almost-overripe peaches I decided a simple crumble would be the perfect dessert. A quick chop and mix and it could bake while we ate dinner. A lovely ending to the meal!
This is just a basic crumble top found in just about every cookbook. This one I barrowed from "Family Meals" by Maria Helm Sinskey, with a couple of tweaks. And since Mandy (the non-dairy eater) was out of town, I used butter!
Crumble Top
1/2 cup soft butter
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3-4 cups chopped fruit
Mix together flour, sugar and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture starts to stick together. Sprinkle on top of fruit in 9" pie plate or 9" x 9" pan or pretty tart pan. Bake at 400 for forty minutes.
If you think your fruit is too tart or too juicy, you can mix a bit of sugar and flour with the fruit too. My peaches were perfect and the crumble was quite sweet enough. There might have been a bit too much too. I think if I had a bit less, the top would have crisped up a bit more instead of being slightly gooey in the center.
