My Secret For a Perfect Fruit Crumble

About author / Victoria Wesseler

Healthy eating advocate; master gardener; local food expert. Even veggie haters love her recipes.

Around this time of the year, I start to clean out the two freezers in my garage. I usually have a moratorium on buying things at the grocery store as I try to use up all the produce I have from last year’s harvest in order to make room for the coming year’s bounty. Among my collection of “still to be used fruit” I have one large bag of blackberries. Not enough to make jam but, lucky for me, just enough to make a fruit crumble. Crumbles are one of my all time favorite desserts. It’s hard to beat the combination of warm succulent fruit topped with a cinnamon-laced oatmeal and brown sugar topping, and finished off with a bit of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

Fruit and topping. Simple enough. You think they would be fairly easy to make, but for years, I was disappointed in my attempts. I always burned the topping. It seemed that in order for the fruit to reach the proper temperature and be slightly bubbling in the pan, the crumble had to be left in the oven just long enough for topping to get too browned. If I covered the crumble with foil half way through the baking process in an attempt to prevent the burning, I didn’t get the crunch I wanted. I tried several different topping recipes varying the amounts of sugar, butter, flour, and oatmeal but none seemed to work.

Several years ago, I was asked to make a blackberry crumble for a pitch in dinner. I agreed to do it, but was concerned that I would end up bringing a less than terrific dessert with yet another burned top. As I was adding the fruit to the pan, something occurred to me. Why not heat the fruit half way through, then add the topping and bake it for the rest of the time? That way the fruit could pre-heat a bit and the topping would be in the oven for less time. It seemed logical to me.

I mixed the blackberries with the sugar and cornstarch and put the mixture in the baking dish. At the half-way point, I took the crumble out of the oven and added the topping, put it back in the oven, and baked it for the remainder of the baking time. When the crumble was done, I had perfection. Bubbly warm fruit covered with a lightly browned, but not burned, topping. As the crumble cooled, the topping became hard and crunchy. Now why hadn’t I thought of this before?

So, try my recipe for blackberry fruit crumble. I promise you-- it will be perfect every time!

Serves/Makes: 6

• 6 cups fresh or frozen blackberries (if frozen, thaw slightly)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar (or sweeten to taste depending on the sweetness of the berries)
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup uncooked, old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder (optional)