Peach-Blueberry Crisp

Living in Santa Barbara my appreciation of summer is a bit less then when I was living in rainy Seattle, chilly Estonia or temperamental Colorado. Days of rain, hours of darkness and late season snow storms help one appreciate the warming power of the sun and the smile educing wonder of a brilliant blue sky. It means long summer days and relaxed evenings enjoy the late setting sun. It is the season of BBQs and family reunions. Still even in a place where the effects of summer might be less extreme, summer still means fresh fruit and berries! A relatively cool spring here has meant that berries are lasting a bit later into the summer than they normally do that the farmers market. This is very good news, as it means I have a ton of options of trying to cure my enormous sweet tooth. I love sweets of all kinds and normally have some sort of dessert every night, even if it is just a few squares of chocolate. Rich and dense desserts and chocolate are wonderful, but sometimes something with a nice balance between tart and sweet is just what the soul needs. Enter the wonderful world of fruit and berry crisps.

There are so many types of crisps and cobblers that I think way to go is to see what fruit looks best (or what of your fruit you need to use up before it goes bad). Whip up the right dough add in some spices and top the final creation off with ice cream and you have yourself a wonderful treat to end a beautiful summer evening.
This week I picked up some local peaches, blueberries and blackberries. After a loaf of bread fell on my peaches and bruised them up a bit (kitchen chaos at its finest) my hand was forced and the peaches were destined for a crisp. Add in some blueberries and you have a good balance of flavors and something that is pretty simple to make, but will pass some time.

There are a lot of ways to put together a crisp as well as types of dishes you can bake them in, but since I am a big fan of the crisp part, I tend to put crisp on both the top and bottom of the baking dish and I used individual ramekins. As I will go into detail in a later post, I really don’t like measuring things, I tend to adjust as I go, and this includes my crisp mix.

So here is what you need to make two to three servings.
1 large or two medium sized peaches
½ carton of blueberries
Rolled oats
Flour
Brown sugar
Butter (around a ½ stick, cut into pieces)
Sugar
Cinnamon
Allspice
Nutmeg
Ground ginger
Salt
Cornstarch

Peel the peach(es) and slice into thin slices
Place the peaches in a medium sized mixing bowl
Add the blueberries
Add 1 tablespoon sugar
Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Add ½ teaspoon ginger
Add ½ to 1 teaspoon cornstarch
Mix all the ingredients together and set aside

Preheat oven to 325
In food processor add a handful of rolled oats (~3/4 cup)
Add ½ flour
Add 1/3 cup to ½ cup brown sugar
Add ½ teaspoon salt
Add ½ teaspoon nutmeg
Add ½ teaspoon to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pulse food processor to mix dry ingredients
Add about half of the cut butter
Blend in butter for about 1 minute
Check the mixture, it should stick together in approximately pea sized clumps.
If the mixture is still too dry add additional pieces of butter until mixture is moist.

Press some of the crisp mixture into the bottom of two single serving ramekins. Pour in the berry-peach mixture. Then cover the top of the mixture with the crisp dough (cover completely and gently press down if you want a thicker crisp layer.

Place ramekins in over and bake for 30 minutes. Check to see if top is browned and liquid is bubbling out the sides. If the top needs more time to brown keep in the oven a bit longer.

When the crisps have finished baking take them out of the oven and top with a couple scoops of ice cream. Vanilla is classic, but I find that dolce de leche is a great contrast to the peach blueberry filling.