Crisps and Other Fruit Desserts

Gluten Free Oatmeal Pecan Apple Cranberry Crisp

Cranberries and apples a wonderful combination. Sweet crisp apples contrast well with much tarter cranberries in all kinds of recipes, from pies to sauces. This Gluten Free Oatmeal Pecan Apple Cranberry Crisp is a simple dessert that showcases the two fruits in a delicious way, with a nutty …

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This crisp is homey and perfect for serving up on a cold fall or winter evening. The filling is sweet-tart and has a lovely pink hue, as the apple slices soak up a bit of the juices from the berries as the crisp bakes. The topping is crisp, crumbly and nutty, a delicious contrast for the tender fruit beneath it. The fruit is, of course, a combination of apples and cranberries. Apple should be peeled and sliced into 12-16 pieces before being added to the filling mixture to ensure that they are not too large to cook evenly while the dessert is baking. I like sweet-tart apples, not extremely tart Granny Smiths, in this recipe, but you can use any apple that you like to bake with.

The topping itself is extremely easy to put together. It is a combination of oatmeal, almond meal (also known as almond flour), spices and brown sugar, along with a generous handful of chopped pecans for texture. Even though it seems like there is more almond in the mix than pecans, the buttery flavor of the pecans really comes through in the finished dish, much moreso than the flavor of the almond meal. I love how pecans work with the oatmeal, apples and cranberries. That said, if you are a big almond-lover, you can replace the chopped pecans with chopped almonds, too.

I prefer to use quick cooking oatmeal in this recipe. Quick cooking oatmeal is basically rolled oats that have been coarsely chopped into smaller pieces. The smaller pieces produce a more uniform topping in this recipe and look a bit better than regular rolled oats do. Oatmeal is naturally gluten free, but if you need to be sure this crisp is completely free of gluten, look for oatmeal that is labeled “gluten free” on the packaging just to ensure that it was not processed in a facility with wheat flour.

Gluten Free Oatmeal Pecan Apple Cranberry Crisp
1 cup gluten free quick cooking oatmeal
1/2 cup almond meal
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans.
4 large apples (approx 2 lbs), peeled and sliced
1 1/2 cups whole cranberries, fresh or frozen
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Take out an 8×8 or 9×9-inch baking pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together oatmeal, almond meal, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and brown sugar. Pour in melted butter and stir with a form until mixture comes together and resembles wet sand. Stir in pecan pieces.
In a large bowl, combine the sliced apples (aim to get 12-16 per large apple) and cranberries with cornstarch and sugar, then toss to combine. Transfer fruit mixture to the baking pan and spread into an even layer.
Top fruit evenly with the crumble mixture.
Bake for about 45-50 minutes, or until the fruit is tender and filling is bubbling. IF the top is browning too quickly, cover loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.
Allow to cool before serving, but can be served warm or at room temperature.

Serves 6-8

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Skillet Peach and Mango Cobbler

Skillet Peach and Mango Cobbler
Skillet cobblers are go-to recipes for me during the summer, when I don’t always want to run my oven for an extended period of time but I still want a delicious dessert. Even I don’t want to be in a hot kitchen baking during a heatwave! As the name suggests, the whole cobbler …

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Skillet cobblers are go-to recipes for me during the summer, when I don’t always want to run my oven for an extended period of time but I still want a delicious dessert. Even I don’t want to be in a hot kitchen baking during a heatwave! As the name suggests, the whole cobbler is made in a skillet on the stovetop. This Skillet Peach and Mango Cobbler is a great combination of rich peach and tropical mango, topped with a crisp topping that has both almonds and shredded coconut.

To make the skillet cobbler, you first combine the ingredients for the topping. The mixture comes together like a streusel and is then cooked in a large skillet, instead of being baked in the oven. You will need to keep an eye on the topping while it cooks, buttery mixture can go from toasted to burned if left unattended, but it only takes a couple of minutes for it to toast up in a hot pan. The mixture includes flour, rolled oats, almond flour (aka almond meal) and brown sugar, almond with some butter to bind everything together. I added untoasted shredded coconut at the end for its sweetness and chewy texture.

The filling is made by cooking peaches and mangos with sugar, as well as a bit of cornstarch to bind up the juices of the fresh fruit. Try to cut the fruit into evenly sized pieces so that everything takes the same amount of time to cook. The size of your fruits may vary (I’ve seen some pretty big peaches out there!), so just keep that in mind while you’re prepping your ingredients.

If you’re making this when fresh peaches or mango are out of season, this dish can also be made with frozen fruit. While fresh fruit is going to give you the best texture because the fruit tends to be a bit firmer after cooking, frozen fruit still makes a delicious cobbler. You can use frozen sliced peaches and sliced/cubed mango to make the dessert. The instructions are the same, you just might have a bit of extra liquid in the filling because frozen fruit tends to give off a bit more moisture than fresh. Frozen fruit will allow you to make this dessert all year round!

Skillet Peach and Mango Cobbler
Streusel
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 tsp almond flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup shredded coconut

Filling
16 oz ripe peaches (approx 3 large)
16 oz ripe mango (approx 2-3 large)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, oats, almond meal, brown sugar and salt. Pour in melted butter and stir with a fork until mixture resembles wet sand.
Preheat a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add streusel mixture to skillet and cook, stirring regularly, until golden brown – about 5-8 minutes. Mixture will brown rapidly towards the end of the cooking time, so stir more frequently and remove from heat immediately to prevent it from burning if it turns dark brown. Transfer mixture to a tray to cool. When cool, stir in shredded coconut.

Peel peaches and remove pits, then cut each into 8-10 wedges. If peaches are very larger, cut the wedges in half cross-wise to make smaller pieces. Peel mangoes and cut fruit into chunks approximately the same size as the peach slices.
In a large bowl, combine fruit with sugar, cornstarch and salt, then fold with a spatula to combine.
Using the same skillet you used for the streusel, cook fruit mixture over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the fruit releases its juices and mixture begins to thicken, 7-10 minutes.
Divide fruit into individual serving bowls and generously top with streusel. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if desired.

Serves 4-6

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Peach and Raspberry Buckle

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Peach and Raspberry Buckle

A buckle is a great dessert to bake when you want to take advantage of a kitchen full of ripe, seasonal fruit. And this Peach and Raspberry Buckle is no exception! The simple dessert is loaded with sweet-tart raspberries that are a nice counterpoint to honey-sweet peaches, and they give each slice of buckle a beautiful pop of color. It has a bit of streusel to contrast with the tender cake and juicy fruit, resulting in a dessert that is an addictive slice of summer.

Wondering what a buckle is? A “buckle” is a fruit dessert that is in the same family as cobblers, crumbles and crisps. Buckles are unique because they start with a cake-like batter, then fruit is folded in. The name comes from the fact that the cake-like batter is loaded with so much fruit that it “buckles” underneath all of it.

To ensure a tender cake, I make the batter for this buckle in the food processor, using the machine’s blades to cut the butter into the other dry ingredients. This step can be done by hand, but it saves you a lot of time to use the food processor. The other reason why I make the batter this way is that it allows me to set a small portion of the sandy buttery mixture aside to be used as a streusel for the finished dessert. The remaining butter mixture has vanilla and almond extracts added to it, as well as egg and milk, before the fruit is folded in.

I recommend either slicing your peaches in 6-8 slices for a medium-large sized peach. The dish has a fairly long baking time – in part because the peaches release so much moisture into the batter – and you want to ensure that the pieces are large enough that they don’t break down completely in the oven! Be careful as you fold the raspberries in so they don’t get crushed by the peaches. If you are using frozen raspberries, use them frozen, not defrosted.

The buckle can be served slightly warm or at room temperature. It is delicious on its own, however it also pairs well with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. While I tend to make this for dessert, it could double as a brunch dish, since the streusel on top is reminiscent of the streusel layer on top of coffee cake. The buckle is best within two days of baking, but I find that my buckles rarely last that long, as they get eaten much sooner.

Peach and Raspberry Buckle
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract
1/2 cup milk
3 medium-large ripe peaches, sliced in 1/6 or 1/8 pieces
1 cup (8 oz) raspberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and sugar and whisk together. Add butter and rub in to flour mixture, until mixture is sandy and no pieces larger than a small pea remain.
Remove 1/2 cup of the mixture and place it in a small bowl. Set aside.
Add egg, vanilla extract and milk to the large bowl and stir to combine.
This can all also be done in a food processor, cutting in the butter by pulsing the blade, adding the wet ingredients and whizzing everything together to form the batter. The batter should be transferred to a bowl after it has been mixed.
When batter comes together, fold in the peaches and raspberries.
Pour batter with berries into prepared pan. Sprinkle with crumb mixture that was set aside in the small bowl.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Juices from the peaches may be bubbling at the edges of the pan, but the juices should look thickened, not watery. (8-inch pans may take 5-10 minutes longer than 9-inch pans).
Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 6-8.

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Chai Cherry Crumble

Fruit crumbles are easy desserts to make all year round because you can use either fresh or frozen fruit as your base. This Chai Cherry Crumble is a spicy twist on a classic fruit crumble, with chai spices in the filling and topping of this comfort food dessert.

Cherries are often …

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Cherries are often left almost unadorned in pie and crumble fillings. They do have a delicious flavor on their own, of course, but cherries are extremely versatile and they go really well with all kinds of spices. Chai tea blends have no shortage of spices. Since I didn’t want to add a bunch of liquid to my filling – cherries produce plenty of natural juice on their own in the oven – I simply used dried spices to add those familiar chai flavors. The filling includes cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice and vanilla. As always, I recommend using fresh spices for the best flavor (not something that has been in the cabinet for a few years already!). Since there is so much spice in the filling, I used a bit less on in the crumble topping, which only includes cinnamon, ginger and vanilla.

I used black, sweet cherries that I picked up in the freezer section of Trader Joe’s. They have a delicious flavor and I like that rich cherry sweetness in this particular dessert. Tart cherries, which are a good choice for a pie, don’t feel as rich in this recipe with all of the chai spices. Whether you’re using fresh or frozen, cherries give off a fair amount of juice in the oven, so I included cornstarch in the filling to thicken up the juices. They will bubble thickly in the oven when the crumble is done, and the filling will thicken up even more as the crumble cools.

The crumble is ready to serve about 20 minutes after baking. Leftovers can be refrigerated and reheated in the microwave the next day or two. The spices blend and come together even more after the crumble has been refrigerated. That said, I can’t resist eating at least two servings when this is fresh from the oven. The crumble will serve about 8 – but you’ll get fewer servings if you like yours as big as I do!

Chai Cherry Crumble
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla extract

32 oz cherries, fresh or frozen
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.
In a medium bowl, prepare crumble topping. Whisk together flour, sugars, salt, cinnamon and ginger until well-combined. Stir in melted butter and vanilla extract until mixture is crumbly and resembles moist sand. Set aside.
In a large bowl, prepare the filling. Combine cherries, sugar, cornstarch, spices and vanilla extract and stir together with a spatula until everything is evenly mixed.
Pour fruit mixture into a deep 10-inch pie plate. Grab handfuls of crumble mixture and squeeze them in your fist to create large crumbles. Sprinkle crumble mixture evenly over fruit.
Bake for 60 minutes, until cherry juice is thickly bubbling around the outer edge of the pan. In the event that the crumble becomes too brown, simply lay a piece of aluminum foil loosely over the top of the crumble for the last 15 minutes of baking.
Allow crumble to cool for at least 20 minutes before serving to allow juices to thicken. Store leftovers in the fridge and reheat in the microware before serving.

Serves 8.

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Angostura Cherry Cobblers

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Cherry cobblers are one of my favorite “comfort food” desserts, and I bake them up on a regular basis. That said, I’m always looking to put a new twist on them to make them memorable and these Angostura Cherry Cobblers are one of my very favorite variations. The cobblers have a jammy cherry filling that is flavored with the potent spices of Angostura bitters, an ingredient used in cocktails all the time, but rarely in baking. It’s a delicious take on this classic and I just can’t get enough!

Bitters are an alcoholic extract that are typically used as a cocktail flavoring. Originally developed as medicines and purported to have many curative effects, they made their way from the pharmacy to the bar when the term “cocktail” came into common use in the beginning of the 19th century, where cocktail was defined as a beverage which used a combination of spirits, sugar, water and bitters. Like vanilla extract, bitters use alcohol to extract the flavors from the botanicals that go into them. They’re typically made with a wide variety of spices, herbs, roots and other ingredients, which come together to form a very intensely flavored extract that is intended to be used only a few dashes at a time. As the name suggests, many bitters have a distinctly bitter note to them, but they can use dozens of ingredients and actually have very complex and layered flavor profiles.

These days, not all cocktails include bitters and, similarly, not all bitters need to be confined to the bar. These individual Angostura Cherry Cobblers are just one of many examples of how bitters can shine in the kitchen because I added a generous dash of Angostura bitters to my cobbler filling!

Angostura is one of the most widely recognized brands of bitters. The secret recipe for the brand’s aromatic was developed around 1820 and has remained unchanged ever since. You’ll pick up notes of allspice or clove and cinnamon in the bitters, along with many other flavors. These warm spices add a lot of depth to cocktails and they also add a lot to the cherries in this cobbler. The cherries are lush, spicy and much more complex than you would expect the cherries in an ordinary cobbler to be. The bitter notes of the bitters don’t overshadow the cherries, so don’t worry about that if you’re not very familiar with bitters!

The cobbler topping is a buttermilk and vanilla biscuit topping that would be delicious with almost any cobbler filling. By keeping the topping simple, the flavors in the filling stand out even more. I baked these as individual cobblers, dividing the cherries and topping equally between four ramekins. I didn’t quite use all the topping because I wanted to see a bit of the cherry bubbling up underneath it, but there is enough to completely cover all four servings. These cobblers are best when served slightly warm from the oven. You can serve them as-is or top them with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Angostura Cherry Cobblers

Angostura Cherry Cobblers
Filling
16-oz cherries, fresh or frozen
1/4 cup sugar
8 dashes Angostura Bitters
1 tbsp cornstarch

Topping
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
coarse sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 375F. Place four 8-oz ramekins on a baking sheet.
In a medium bowl, stir together all filling ingredients.
In a large bowl, prepare the topping. Stir together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add in melted butter, buttermilk and vanilla extract and stir until dough comes together.
Divide cherry mixture evenly into prepared ramekins. Dollop topping (or use your fingers, if you don’t mind getting messy) mixture over the cherries. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until cherry filling is bubbling and topping is golden brown.
Allow cobblers to cool slightly before serving.

Serves 4.

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