The Slapdash Cook

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We bought way too much fruit last weekend. I would say there’s no such thing as too much fruit, but there is — when it goes bad. To prevent that terrible outcome, I took the liberty last night of transforming our excess stone fruit into a crumble.

This is the first cooking experience on this blog that I would consider a FAIL. It tasted fine, but the crumble topping didn’t end up with the look or texture I think of as crumble-appropriate. Instead, it was more like a rich, sweet pie crust. Not bad, but not what I was aiming for. I made many substitutions, but I think what did it was either the wrong dry stuff-to-fat ratio or the use of tub margarine rather than butter in the first place. (Because we’re basically out of butter.) Tub margarine doesn’t have that irritating hardness that cold butter has, making it difficult to cut into “crumbs.” While I really hate that property of butter, it’s a feature rather than a bug in baking. Lesson reinforced: Don’t mess with the chemistry of baking!

But, as I said, it tasted just fine. In fact, someone who’s really cutting down on fat could skip the topping and just bake the fruit and serve with plain fat-free yogurt, which is what’s in the pic above.

Slapdash Stone Fruit Crumble
(With the actual crumble topping recipe listed and my substitutions in parens.)

Filling:
4-5 pieces of stone fruit: Peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, pluots, or substantially more cherries. Original recipe calls for 4 1/2 cups fruit.
Pinch of sugar, or to taste. I could probably have left it out altogether, this fruit was so sweet and juicy.
A cautious sprinkle of ground ginger and/or cinnamon. Say, 1/4 tsp each.
a teaspoon to a tablespoon of lemon juice

Crumble topping (from pear crisp recipe in Jane Brody’s Good Food book, inherited from my mom):
1/2 cup instant rolled oats (Didn’t have these. Substituted 1/4 cup ground almonds and 1 tb each chopped walnuts and shredded coconut.)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour (she calls for pastry flour, I have none, all-purpose went in instead. White is fine too.)
1/4 cup packed brown (or turbinado or whatever) sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon (didn’t really measure this, just shook it in.)
3 tablespoons butter or margarine

Preheat your oven to 350. Brody said to grease the pan, but I didn’t bother.

Slice the stone fruit directly over the baking dish you’re going to use, to catch the juice. Mix with lemon juice, spices and sugar. Set aside.

In either a food processor or another bowl, combine all the crumble topping ingredients. I am giving you a choice because if you use the bowl, you will have to mix/cut the butter with a pastry blender or two knives, which is a long and boring process. On the other hand, if you use the food processor, it’s almost instant but you have to wash the food processor. I know, tough life I lead. You’re done when it has a crumb-like or crumbly texture.

Once it’s ready, sprinkle it over the fruit mixture. Since my texture came out wrong, it wasn’t really sprinkle-able; it was more like dropping drop cookies or even spreading batter.

Bake 45 minutes or until top is crispy. This needed extra time, possibly because of the topping being wrong and possibly just because we have a slow, cheap renters’ oven. J. kindly volunteered to periodically taste it.

Done! The juicy part always burns a little around the edges because of the sugar, but if you cook off enough moisture, it also makes this great syrupy liquid. Serve with dairy or fake dairy product of your choice.