Issue #219: Crisp

What’s In a Name? My Sister’s Favorite Fruit Dessert

Rhubarb in spring. Berries and stone fruits in summer. Apples in fall.

For as long as I can remember, my sister Carrie has made crisps. She made them because she loved them, especially the cooked-fruit part.

(No all you Brits, I’m not talking about potato chips.)

At her house for dinner the other night in Whitby, Ontario, Carrie made a small blueberry, nectarine, and rhubarb crisp. It was seasonal, fast, and exactly what we needed after a nice home-cooked meal.

My sister’s crisp, made with blueberries, nectarines, rhubarb, and maple sugar.

In the category of cooked-fruit desserts, pies aside, there are many American variations—Bettys, buckles, cobblers, crisps, crumbles, grunts, slumps, and sonkers, to name a few.

No one seems to be able to agree on which is what, whether one gets a biscuit crust, and another a streusel topping. Oats, yes or no? Nuts? Their names seem to go in and out of fashion on menus and in recipe books, but their appeal never wanes.

Read about what I called a Blueberry Buckle in Issue #66.

James Beard was too flexible and forgiving to be our country’s culinary codifier-in-chief, as Escoffier was for France, or we might have had more clarity in the baking dish. On occasion, Beard did broach the subject of fruit-dessert nomenclature, declaring in American Cookery that buckles and grunts are one and the same. But the recipes you find in other American cookbooks, old and new, would make such definitiveness dubious.

All I can say is that the dessert my sister served me, which she called a crisp, was delicious. And I think you’d be happy to make it with the abundant fruit you find at farm stands these days or with any stragglers you might have in your fridge that you just can’t otherwise consume.

A crisp, itself, is endlessly variable. Carrie never uses a recipe. She happened to have some maple sugar candy on hand, so that’s what she used as the sweetener. But you can use light brown sugar or regular granulated, too. You can substitute whole-grain flour for some of the all-purpose, add chopped nuts or toasted seeds, as you wish. This recipe is for a small crisp, serving 2 or 3. Carrie’s baking dish held barely a quart. But you can vary the size as needed, too.

In the sort of pro move you’d expect from a seasoned home cook busy with work, life, and the responsibility of getting a child ready to go to university in a couple of weeks, Carrie sped up the cooking by starting the fruit bottom in the microwave. Then she topped it with the crisp mixture and finished the whole thing in the oven. I love the practicality of this dual-fuel technique.

Remember that whatever you call your baked fruit with topping, we are in the realm of homey desserts that are meant to be casual and quick. Don’t over work, over stress, or over think it. Flipping through a cookbook by a friend on Carrie’s coffee table, I stumbled on a recipe for a caramel apple crisp that spanned four oversized pages. I’m sure the result is great, but that’s too much time and technique to devote to an apple crisp, imho.

And if ever in doubt about what you’ve produced, a scoop of ice cream and/or a dollop of whipped cream makes every crisp better.

RECIPE: Carrie’s Crisp

Serves 2 to 3

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/3 cup quick cooking oats

• 1/4 cup maple or light brown sugar, divided

• 3 tablespoons salted or unsalted butter, at room temperature

• Pinch cinnamon

• 2 cups fruit, such as blueberries, raspberries, sliced rhubarb, nectarines and/or sliced peaches

• 1 heaping teaspoon cornstarch

• Juice and zest of ½ lemon

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour, oats, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and cinnamon, and mix well. (If using unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt.) Add the softened butter, and with a fork, blend it in to make a crumbly mixture. Set aside.

In a small, microwave- and oven-safe baking dish, combine the fruit with the remaining 2 tablespoons of the sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest and juice, and mix to coat. Set in the microwave and zap on high for two one-minute intervals, stirring between each. The fruit should be hot, the berries just about to burst.

Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top of the hot, cooked fruit and set in the preheated oven to bake until the topping begins to brown and the fruit bottom is bubbly, about 20 minutes. Serve warm.